The European Union, democratization, and minorities in Latvia

Muiznieks, Nils; Kehris, Ilze Brands

doi:10.4324/9780203458464_chapter_2

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…In Latvia , the Russians who accounted for just under 30 per cent of the population dominated minority politics. Despite more liberal language and citizenship laws passed in the late 1990s under strong pressure from the OSCE and EU (Muižnieks and Brands Kehris, 2003), disputes persisted over the high proportion of non‐citizens and the relative slowness of the naturalization process. Moreover, minority politics was caught up in party‐political polemics.…”

Section: Slovakia and Latvia: Conditionality Issues Since Eu Entrymentioning

confidence: 99%

The EU's Political Conditionality and Post‐Accession Tendencies: Comparisons from Slovakia and Latvia

Pridham

2008

J of Common Market Studies

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The EU's political conditionality during the 2004 enlargement process recorded significant progress but imperfect implementation. But what has happened since post-Communist countries joined the EU three years ago now that the leverage of Brussels has ceased? This article develops an analytical approach to answer this question and applies it to the two cases of Slovakia and Latvia during the first three years of membership, showing some further progress with conditionality matters but also a rather mixed picture. Altogether, there is no common pattern whereby conditionalty loses momention and becomes unscrambled even though the drive behind enlargement has been the crucial force driving conditionality policy. Copyright (c) 2008 The Author(s).

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Section: Slovakia and Latvia: Conditionality Issues Since Eu Entrymentioning

confidence: 99%

The EU's Political Conditionality and Post‐Accession Tendencies: Comparisons from Slovakia and Latvia

Pridham

2008

J of Common Market Studies

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“…The latter was a gamble, insofar as ministries can be reorganised, liquidated, or combined with every change in the political wind. However, I reckoned that once a government structure devoted to the minority issue had been created, the threshold for destroying it would immediately be relatively high: international attention to the minority issue in Latvia had been intense (see, e.g., Birckenbach, 1997;Dorodnova, 2003;Muiznieks and Brands Kehris, 2003) and no Latvian government could credibly claim that the issue had been resolved once and for all. I calculated that I could raise that threshold even more by activating some typical bureaucratic logic.…”

Section: Experiences In Government: the Logic Of Bureaucraciesmentioning

confidence: 97%

A Political Scientist's Experience in the Real World of Politics

Muiznieks

2009

Eur Polit Sci

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Doctoral candidates in political science have a universe of potential career options to choose from. These include not only academia, but also the nongovernmental sector, political consulting, and government work. When I obtained my doctoral degree in 1993, little did I imagine that within fifteen years I would have tried my hand in all of these fields, including serving as a cabinet minister. In this article, I reflect on how this professional whirlwind came about, how each field helped and/or hindered the others, what these wanderings taught me about post-communist democratic politics, and particularly what lessons a political scientist learned from entering, albeit briefly, the 'real world' of politics.

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“…These years were characterized by intensified interaction between this outside pressure, marked by regular diplomatic visits and repeated monitoring of the minority situation, and a rather complicated domestic state of affairs with moves and counter-moves among the divided political elite in Riga. Among other things, there was a referendum on the new citizenship law instigated by the nationalist party while, on the language law, the new President Vīķe-Freiberga played a vital part in forcing through change by veto just in time for the EU decision on negotiations (Muižnieks & Brands Kehris 2003). Clearly, this short period marked a turning point both in Latvia's EU fortunes and in its conditionality compliance; but, given the closeness of the result, what real change did this produce and did it open the way for a new level of accommodation with the political demands of Brussels?…”

Section: Latvia's Democratization: External Factors and The European mentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-Soviet Latvia–A Consolidated or Defective Democracy? The Interaction between Domestic and European Trajectories

Pridham¹

2009

Journal of Baltic Studies

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Recent developments in post-communist Europe and Latvia in particular have raised questions about political stability in new democracies there. This article argues for taking a long-term perspective on this problem in place of short-term judgments. In doing so, it makes special reference to the EU's political conditionality and its impacts on Latvia and then applies comparative lessons on democratic consolidation based on the concept of 'partial regimes'. It becomes clear in this analysis that the consolidation process in Latvia has advanced over the past decade and more and, in this respect, the EU did have an important, though limited and rather specific, impact. Yet this process is still incomplete, with historical legacies being a major factor. The ethnic divide has also remained largely unresolved, party development problems have persisted and the public is still unconvinced by the actual democracy they see before them and is alienated by political elite behavior in particular. Hence, Latvia does not have a defective democracy as such, but further change is necessary before democratic consolidation may be achieved there.

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The European Union, democratization, and minorities in Latvia

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

The EU's Political Conditionality and Post‐Accession Tendencies: Comparisons from Slovakia and Latvia

The EU's Political Conditionality and Post‐Accession Tendencies: Comparisons from Slovakia and Latvia

A Political Scientist's Experience in the Real World of Politics

Post-Soviet Latvia–A Consolidated or Defective Democracy? The Interaction between Domestic and European Trajectories

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