This was stated today at YSU by the authors of the interdisciplinary study “Comparative analysis of the level of democracy:Armenia,Georgia,Azerbaijan,Russia,Belarus,Kazakhstan,Ukraine,Moldova”. The study was conducted in the framework of the master’s program at the Centre for European Studies of Yerevan State University “Human rights and democratization in the Caucasus.”

“Today we present the Armenian and international community of experts the work, which has no precedent in Armenia, in the sense that a method has been applied, in which political science, legal and other indexes were compared. The level of democracy in the country has been revealed through the mathematical calculation,” - said the Director of the Centre for European Studies of Yerevan State University Arthur Ghazinyan and added that the study is applicable to various organizations.

According to the member of the expert group Ashot Alexanyan, particularly those countries that have some connections with Armenia in the context of European and Eurasian integration have been selected for the study: “It is interesting that the democratic deficit that exists in post-Soviet countries to some extent has been overcome thanks to the process of the European integration.”

The work includes both domestic and inter-state analysis. As part of the internal analysis levels of democracy of the participants of the Eastern Partnership,Russia and Kazakhstan in 1995-2013 years, as well as the interstate one in 2012-2013 were measured.

“The index of the level of democracy consists of five main factors: social, political, economic, health and educational. Each of them includes various indicators, based on which we have made measurements,” - said the Head of the research project, Candidate of Political Science Arusyak Alexanyan.

According to the scale, Moldova has the most points, followed by Georgia and Ukraine. Armenia here occupies the 4th place, and Azerbaijan is ranked the lowest.

Speaking about Armenia, Arusyak Alexanyan noted that in 1995-2013 there was a trend to increase the level of democracy, which, however, is noticeable not in all areas.

“According to the index of the political factor, in general there was no positive trend. This means that in this area there were no positive changes. The largest decline was in 2008, in connection with the presidential elections, citizens’ concern about their results, the political pressure,” - said the expert.

According to the study, the low level of this index is compensated by positive changes in the social and economic spheres. According to the index of economic freedom Armenia and Georgia have the highest rates.

Speaking about education, Arusyak Alexanyan noted that, despite the fact that Armenia provides with a high level of quality, however, in terms of expenses, allocation of public funds, these positive changes are imperceptible yet.

Summing up the results of the study, the experts concluded that the countries considered are partly democratic, and only Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with their parameters are close to the list of non-democratic countries. The study is available in Armenian and English.