By Andranik Aboyan
In the corridors of power in Yerevan, a legislative shift is unfolding that transcends simple debates over “press freedom.” The Armenian government’s move to empower the Commission on Television and Radio (HRH) with discretionary authority to ban content deemed “harmful to national security” represents a profound reconfiguration of the state’s relationship with its citizens.
To look at this through the lens of critical political theory—specifically the work of Louis Althusser, Antonio Gramsci, and Nicos Poulantzas—is to see a state in a defensive crouch, attempting to insulate itself from an escalating “crisis of authority.”
The Context: Security as a Semantic Weapon
The proposed bill, spearheaded by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s cabinet, grants the HRH—a body dominated by political loyalists—the power to initiate criminal proceedings and ban broadcasts based on vague categories such as “propaganda of war” or content “harmful” to the constitutional order.
The gravity of this shift is best illustrated by the ongoing case of billionaire Samvel Karapetyan. Arrested in June 2025, Karapetyan’s “crime” was a pledge to defend the Armenian Apostolic Church “in our way”—a phrase the state interpreted as a call for a violent regime change. When the law allows for the criminalization of such linguistic ambiguity, the state is no longer merely regulating media; it is practicing what theorists call the “legalization of arbitrariness.”
1. Louis Althusser: The Encroachment of the RSA into the ISA
Louis Althusser’s foundational contribution to Marxist theory was the distinction between the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)—the police, courts, and prisons that function by force—and the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)—the media, schools, and religious institutions that function by persuasion.
In a healthy democracy, the media ISA operates with a degree of relative autonomy. However, the Armenian bill represents a structural collapse of this distinction. By granting the HRH—an ideological body—the power to trigger criminal proceedings (the RSA), the state is effectively weaponizing culture.
This is what Althusser termed “Interpellation.” Through this law, the state “hails” the journalist or the citizen not as a participant in a democratic debate, but as a potential criminal subject. The journalist is forced to self-censor, not because they are convinced by the state’s narrative, but because the “handcuffs” of the RSA are now visible behind the “microphone” of the ISA. The arrest of Karapetyan serves as a high-profile “exemplary punishment” intended to complete this interpellation for the rest of the media field.
2. Antonio Gramsci: The Organic Crisis and the War of Position
Antonio Gramsci focused on Hegemony—the process by which a ruling group maintains power through “spontaneous consent” rather than coercion. When a government’s “common sense” narrative begins to fail, it enters what Gramsci called an “Organic Crisis.”
Pashinyan’s administration is currently caught in a classic Gramscian “War of Position.” On one side is the state; on the other are counter-hegemonic forces including the Armenian Apostolic Church, wealthy diaspora figures like Karapetyan, and foreign influencers (primarily Russian state media).
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” — Antonio Gramsci
The move to ban Russian broadcasters and restrict domestic reports ahead of the 2026 elections is a “morbid symptom.” It is an admission that the government can no longer win the battle for consent through dialogue. To compensate, it is engaging in “Caesarism”—an attempt to solve a political stalemate through administrative force. By branding domestic rivals as “Russian agents,” Pashinyan is attempting to delegitimize any counter-narrative as an existential threat to the nation, thereby justifying the suspension of democratic norms.
3. Nicos Poulantzas: The Rise of Authoritarian Statism
The Greek theorist Nicos Poulantzas provides perhaps the most precise diagnosis of the form this legislation takes: Authoritarian Statism.
Poulantzas argued that in late-stage capitalism, the state does not necessarily abolish democratic institutions; instead, it hollows them out. This process has three distinct features visible in Armenia:
- The Decline of Parliament: Parliament controlled by the ruling Civil Contract party, will “almost certainly” pass the bill. The legislature ceases to be a site of deliberation and becomes a “transmission belt” for executive will.
- The Rise of the Loyal Bureaucracy: Power is shifted to administrative bodies like the HRH. These bodies operate with “discretionary authority,” meaning they can make political decisions under the guise of technical or “security” regulations.
- The Legalization of the Illegal: By using flexible terms like “harmful content,” the state creates a legal framework where almost any dissenting act can be classified as a crime. This allows the state to maintain a veneer of “rule of law” while practicing political exclusion.
In the case of Karapetyan and the proposed media bans, we see the state attempting to manage the “unstable equilibrium of compromise.” The government perceives that its control over the economy and the national narrative is slipping, so it centralizes administrative power to preemptively disqualify opposition before the 2026 electoral cycle begins.
Synthesis: The Informational Monopoly
Through these three lenses, the Armenian media bill is revealed as a sophisticated survival strategy. It is an attempt to create an informational monopoly by:
- Merging ideology and repression (Althusser).
- Forcibly restoring a fractured hegemony (Gramsci).
- Insulating the executive from democratic accountability through loyal bureaucracies (Poulantzas).
As the 2026 elections approach, the question is whether this “Authoritarian Statism” will stabilize the government or if the suppression of dissent will only deepen the “Organic Crisis,” leading to further fractures in the Armenian social fabric.
