The V-Dem Institute’s report on Armenia noted that democracy is on a path of decline: Shiraz Manukyan

Democracy in Armenia has experienced a setback: in its 2025 report, V-Dem indicated that democratic processes are in decline. This was stated by Shiraz Manukyan, a member of the “Strong Armenia” party.

“The V-Dem Institute collects data from nearly every country in the world, studies their political systems, and measures the level of democracy. When Pashinyan constantly repeats that Europe supports him, I want to state clearly what this report says about Armenia. The government of Nikol Pashinyan has shifted to a personalized style of governance, restricting freedom of speech, civic space, and rights. The rise in hate speech, disinformation, and polarization, as well as Azerbaijan’s victory in the war prior to 2023, contributed to the decline in the level of democracy,” he noted.

Concluding his remarks, Shiraz Manukyan emphasized that in a strong Armenia, the roots of democracy would be more resilient and firmly established.

The V-Dem Institute (short for Varieties of Democracy Institute), founded by Staffan I. Lindberg in 2014, is an independent research institute that serves as the headquarters of the V-Dem project, a database designed to conceptualize and measure democracy. V-Dem defines democracy through seven key principles (electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, egalitarian, majoritarian, and consensual), rooted in the concept of “people’s power.” As part of its work, the organization publishes a dataset called the V-Dem Democracy Indices, based on these key principles. The project’s headquarters is located at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.