In May, Armenia underwent its most significant political transformation since the country’s independence from the USSR. A country seemingly trapped in an economic and moral malaise, in which prospects for change were relegated to a distant and improbable future, erupted in massive popular revolt. After making a renewed bid to stay in power, Serzh Sargsyan, the country’s ruler for the past decade, was overthrown, and his Republican Party (HHK), once the only significant political force in the nation, forced into seemingly irreversible retreat.

In hindsight, these events have been a long time coming. A haggard economy and a political system monopolized by the ruling party had inadvertently led to the growth and maturation of a grassroots protest movement which became powerful enough to challenge its supremacy. But the current political transformation is still in its infancy and without an attendant economic and social transformation will not be enough for lasting change. Today, as the new government marshals some unsavory allies to secure its rule, a space has opened for Armenia’s ordinary people to organize and not only consolidate the revolution but go beyond it.

With a population of a little under 3 million and an economy entirely reliant on favorable trade with its larger neighbors and remittances from abroad, Armenia has been incredibly vulnerable to the shifting winds of the global economy. With the arrival of the worldwide recession in 2008, the country was hit exceptionally hard. On paper, the recovery began two years later, with GDP growth back in the black by 2010 and further growth from then on (reaching a high of 7.5 percent for 2017). But this “recovery” was not felt by the vast majority of Armenian people. Unemployment actually increased from 16 percent to 17 percent during the last decade and roughly one-third of the population remains below the poverty line.