ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to answer the following questions: who constituted the new political class and how it came to power? and what was the role of this class in constructing the new narrative substance around politically and nationally relevant issues? It focuses on the theoretical implications of the conceptual suggestions drawn from the research, and elaborates on the ways the conceptualizations of elites could be applied in the analysis of political elites of other post-Soviet countries. The chapter details research challenges and limitations and suggests for improved and facilitated methods both from methodological and analytical perspectives. The research identified not only how the liminal historical, geopolitical, political and sociocultural conditions of the post-Soviet transformation shaped the composition of this new political class. But also members of new political class were themselves 'liminal' or 'peripheral' entities borne out of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, repatriation of Diaspora-based Armenians and reshaped post-Soviet bureaucratic continuity.
