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    Diaspora and democratisation: diversity of impact in Eastern Partnership countries
    (Global Campus, 2019) Aleksanyan, Arusyak ; Bejanyan, Varduhi ; Dodon, Carolina ; Maksimenko, Katsiaryna ; Simonian, Agabeg
    Around the world diasporas are important role players, and they make a significant contribution towards democracy-building processes in their homelands. The advantages of cooperation with diasporas in the sphere of democratisation are substantial. Diasporas display behavioural diversity and invest both financial and non-financial resources and values to enhance democratic governance and policy-making processes, to ensure social welfare and economic growth, to protect human rights and to establish civil society and the rule of law in their homelands. This article explores the influence of diasporas on democratisation in Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries from a comparative perspective. Diasporas originating from the six EaP countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) differ in scope, factors of influence on the democracy-building processes, and impact opportunities on government policies in both their homelands and countries of residence. At the same time, there are many similarities between these countries. Until 1991 these countries had limited ties with diasporas as they were Republics of the Soviet Union. All these countries experienced territorial conflicts, except for Belarus. Having different levels of democracy, they are involved in the EaP initiative aimed at sharing democratic values. From this point of view, it is of great interest to explore the diversity of the diasporas’ impact on the democracy-building processes in the mentioned countries. The article provides an understanding and comparative analysis of the variety in diasporas’ engagement in democratisation of homelands in EaP countries. Based on the findings, the authors argue that the diasporas of these countries have different impact levels on democracy. Moreover, they conclude that the democracy level in turn influences the countries’ diaspora policies.
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    Editorial
    (Global Campus, 2019) Viljoen, Frans ; Hayes, Mike ; Aleksanyan, Arusyak
    This is the fourth issue of the Global Campus Human Rights Journal. It consists of two parts. The first part provides a special focus on the phenomenon of ‘the diaspora’, and investigates its role and influence in various parts of the globe. The second part of this issue of the Journal contains a book review, drawing attention to the life and inestimable role of Raoul Wallenberg in saving lives during World War II.
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    Editorial: the influence of diasporas on democracy-building processes: behavioural diversity
    (Global Campus, 2019) Aleksanyan, Arusyak
    Diaspora and democracy: These two phenomena have always aroused the interest of scholars. Indeed, in academic literature various significant research contributions and discussions are focused separately on either diaspora issues or on democracy. This special focus is an attempt to combine these two categories by exploring democratisation through the prism of diasporas’ activities and the other way round – to reveal the influence of democratic changes on diaspora issues. Something that has been less explored in literature is the role of the diaspora in democracybuilding processes. In this context, articles presented in this issue of the Global Campus Human Rights Journal are unique and in various ways fill this gap in the academic literature. The aim of the research in this special thematic focus is to explore the role and influences that diasporas can have on democracy-building processes by identifying diverse behavioural approaches applied in various regions.
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    Regional perspectives on democratisation of Eastern Partnership countries
    (Global Campus, 2018-10) Aleksanyan, Arusyak
    Interest in studies and measurements of democracy and human rights in terms of globalisation and regional cooperation has extended beyond the academic context, reflecting the features of government policies and the development strategies of countries. Countries in a region with higher and closer levels of democracy have more opportunities for political and economic cooperation. From this point of view the assessment of democracy and human rights levels of Eastern Partnership member states such as Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, is of special interest. Academic literature presents a great variety of theories and definitions of democracy. There are also various indices covering different aspects of democracy. Some of them emphasise the formal or institutional aspects of democracy, whereas others define its procedural features. Other indices measure the implementation of the level of declared rights and even consider democracy in terms of economic development. Thus, to measure and present the comparative analysis of democracy and human rights levels of Eastern Partnership countries, the article first provides the selection and description of democracy indices (proceeding from the differences in covering aspects of democracy). Then, based on the selected indices, a new aggregated index of democracy is calculated through the method for constructing composite indices for providing a multi-sided analysis of democracy and human rights of Eastern Partnership countries. Finally, drawing on the obtained and calculated data, I rank Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine by democracy levels, revealing regional perspectives on human rights and democratisation. Key words: democracy; measurement; Eastern Partnership; democracy indices; aggragated democracy index