Dr. Alla Mirzoyan, an associate program manager with CRDF, is the author of a new book that is the first systematic study of Armenia's foreign policy during the post-independence period, between 1991 and 2005. The book -- entitled Armenia, the Regional Powers, and the West: Between History and Geopolitics -- is published by Palgrave MacMillan and will be released in early April, 2010.

The book explores four sets of relationships with Armenia's major historical 'partners': Russia, Iran, Turkey and the West (Europe and the United States). According to Dr. Mirzoyan, each relationship reveals a complex reality of a continuous negotiation between ideas of history, collective memory, nationalism and geopolitics.

Dr. Mirzoyan argues that although Armenia's foreign policy has been severely constrained, it was nonetheless adept at carving a space for action that privileged the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh over other geopolitical imperatives.

"Armenia is a very small country that throughout its history has been heavily dependent on outside powers," says Dr. Mirzoyan. "I wanted to explore whether, despite this, some of its foreign policy decisions have been defined by identity issues and what were the conceptual foundations of Armenia's foreign policy since independence given the complexity of its environment and its history."

The book is based on Dr. Mirzoyan's PhD dissertation for Florida International University, from which she graduated with her doctorate in December 2007.

For more information, please contact Karen Trimbath at pr@crdf.org.

 

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