An ubiquitous frustration and a tacit sense of helplessness has produced a level of desensitization that has created a new normal: Armenia is a politically corrupt country and we just have to find a way to live with it. This normalization, which is both fomenting a new reality and thus reinforcing and indirectly legitimating the country’s existing political system, is extraordinarily fascinating. But what is so fascinating about it? Not only has this normalization spread to the Armenian Diaspora, it has become reinforced by the cultural, social, and political organizations that represent their respective Armenian communities. The persistence of systemic corruption, institutionalized injustice, patrimonial politics, and personalized hyper-capitalism remain fundamentally contradictory and antithetical to the values, principles, and political goals that many of these Diasporan organizations espouse. Within this context, what explains their well-orchestrated silence and relative lack of critique, even in a constructive fashion, of Armenia’s political leadership?

A three-tiered framework is presented to address this conundrum. First, by Diasporan organizations, one is clearly referring to the powerful Armenian lobbying organizations in the United States, and to an extent, in Europe, along with well-resourced charity or philanthropic organizations that remain apolitical, but engage in cultural and educational projects. For the sake of analytical parsimony, we will concentrate primarily on the Armenian National Committee (ANCA), along with emphasis on the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), and the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). What explains the normalization, by such powerful Armenian Diasporan organizations, of the political system in Armenia? The second framework concentrates on the highly-successful stratagem utilized by the Sargsyan Administration to co-opt these Diasporan organizations, hence marginalizing any serious criticisms against the Armenian government. The third framework addresses the difficult and paradoxical position of the Diasporan organizations; a position that the Sargsyan organization has methodically manipulated to allow for these organizations to advance the interests of the country, but fall short of either criticizing or contradicting the government. The outcome has been a complete alteration in the relationship between the Fatherland and the Diaspora: whereas in the past Armenia was heavily dependent on its Diaspora, this dependency has been reversed (politically and culturally, but not so much economically), as the Armenian government welcomes everyone with open arms…but with strings attached.