Magda Arsenyan is an expert on political affairs at National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia. She is the Head of the "Institute of Liberal Politics" NGO, the objective of which is the promotion of civic and political education in Armenia. She studied political science at Yerevan State University, Faculty of International Relations. She obtained her master’s degree from the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia (PAARA). Currently, she is a PhD Candidate in Political science, specialization under "Political processes and institutions, international relations." Her research interests include foreign policy analysis, parliamentary culture, and public and parliamentary diplomacy.

Curriculum vitae can be found here.

Doctoral thesis

Topic: “Preconditions for the Establishment of the Parliamentary Culture in Armenia”

Supervisor: Prof. Dr Ashot Aleksanyan

Abstract:

The aim of the thesis is the revelation the issues that hinder the formation of parliamentary culture and the designation of preconditions that can boost the democratization of parliamentary culture promoting the development of legal and political consciousness of the society, multilateral parliamentary socialization as well as the modernization and implementation of a culture of parliamentary elite that needs to empower democratic citizenship in accordance with the challenges of time. The significance of the study of parliamentary culture is conditioned by the necessity to raise the effectiveness of the functioning of parliament as a major institute of public authority, which is in the transition process to democratic consolidation.

The thesis consists of introduction, three chapters, conclusion and the list of references.

The first chapter entitled “Legal and Political Origins of the Formation of Parliamentary Culture”, consists of four subchapters and devoted to the revelation of the issues of the definitions, structure, and functions of parliamentary culture, the compliance of provisions between the concepts of parliamentary culture and of parliamentarism. The chapter analyzes the differentiation of deputy and parliamentary ethics, as well as political and governmental procedures, which reveal the functional interaction of parliamentary and political cultures. Due to the above-mentioned the chapter introduces new definition that gives a comprehensive approach to understanding the concept of parliamentary culture. The Chapter also considers the issues of socialization and resocialization that are being analyzed as a soft power in the process of the formation of representative democracy. These issues are considered as important preconditions in terms of overcoming challenges of linear liberalization, “cultural violence” and the regeneration of “homo-sovieticus.”

The second chapter, entitled “The development experience of parliamentary culture in the German Federal Republic” consists of four subchapters, where the experience of formation of parliamentary culture, constitutional and legal basis of electoral and party systems is studied, as well as the role of political foundations is stressed in the process of development and establishment of political and civil society. The Chapter presents the features of the formation and modernization of German political culture, due to which one can witness the difficult path of the formation of the western model of parliamentary democracy full of multilateral challenges of is being stressed.    

The third chapter, entitled “The main issues of the formation of the parliamentary culture of Armenia” consists of four subchapters, where the evolution features of the parliamentary culture of the RA, the transformation of the parliament as a dominant institute of public authority in the processes of constitutional amendments are presented. The chapter also analyses constitutional and legislative effective functioning regulations of the party system, as well as introduces new mechanisms of cooperation between parliamentary elite and the agents of civil society through the bilateral socialization and resocialization.