Interview with Hatia Jinjikhadze, Deputy Director at the Open Society Georgia Foundation. Interviewer: Mackenzie Baldinger.

It has been two years since Nikol Pashinyan has come to power after the Velvet Revolution in Armenia. In this episode Adam catches up with Richard Giragosian to discuss how much has changed in the country and how much has not.

The government of the Georgian Dream has been fairly successful with its gradual approach to tackling the pandemic. At the same time it found itself pitted against one of the most trusted institutions in the country, the Georgian Orthodox Church.

The traditional Georgian media method of framing issues through a partisan political lens has failed to attract viewers and the media is struggling to find its role in the evolving situation. But a public distaste for party politics and leadership battles during this pandemic is not the only challenge facing media newsrooms. Media content, TV programming structures and income-generating models are all increasingly being tested and strained by COVID-19.

The recent regulations in Armenia contradict the political leadership’s commitments to democratisation and may be damaging to the country’s progress.

The COVID-19 pandemic may see the expansion of the strategic partnership between Georgia and the West to include sectors that were previously outside of traditional understandings of security.

Armenia may choose to draw on the legacy of its own long history, as opposed to the Soviet legacy narratives. Doing so will help the country through institutional development and reforms.

Every attempt to reform the Georgian judiciary has been met with suspicion. It is no different when Georgian Dream pushes for them now.

Rather than renewal, these moves suggest elite realignment as the resource pool shrinks.

Azerbaijan may not be on the cusp of a major reform, but developments of recent months have formed the most interesting socio-political dynamics this rather boringly-stable Caspian Republic has seen since 2003.

It is not the first time “reform” has become a buzz word in Azerbaijan. The authorities made several pledges in the past to overhaul and diversify the economy and uproot corruption – especially ahead of elections or in moments of social unrest. Yet apart from a few cosmetic changes, the system and its people remained largely intact. So when the 57-year old president recently announced a package of sweeping reforms and started replacing older officials with young technocrats, many shook their heads in disbelief, taking it as yet another empty promise aimed to pacify the public and create a façade of change.

After the revolution, Armenia needs to take advantage of the available civil society expertise to provide informed conceptualisations of reform actions, and the institutional platforms that facilitate public oversight of reforms.

A step back to the past?