Authors

Discussion

The Azerbaijani government under President Ilham Aliyev (2003-present) has repeatedly repressed politically and socially organized opposition, including opposition parties, independent media, civil society organizations, and individual activists. The two most significant repressions were the crackdowns in 2014 and 2023-2024, each of which drastically reduced the space for alternative movements and discourses. This research paper conducts a comparative analysis of ‘regime emotions’ and the governmental framing justifications for the 2014 and 2023-2024 repressions. To do so, we draw on governmental speeches and documents as well as expressions of emotional practice. We argue that the crackdowns served as climactic moments for the Azerbaijani government to re-articulate and reinvent its dominant ideology, while maintaining an emotional practice of 'moral domination'. In our analysis, we focus on enemy images and the dividing lines between the in-group that needs 'protection' and the external/internal enemies that are 'to be hated' or 'resented', as well as the specific geopolitical contexts of the periods under analysis. Our research contributes to scholarship on the Caucasus and adds conceptual insight on the imbrication of ideology and emotions by analyzing their interaction during a case of authoritarian repression.