Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses’ Growth Expectations and Financial Performance in Latvia: Does Ethnicity Matter?

Applying regulatory focus theory, this paper investigates the impact of both ‘initial confidence’ and ‘exactness of growth expectations’ on the financial performance of small and medium-sized firms in Latvia. Drawing on a data set based on repeated survey design, we explore the complexity of this relationship empirically. Our overall findings suggest that when controlling for other relevant factors, such as actual growth, entrepreneurs having higher growth expectations perform significantly better in terms of profitability. In addition, education has a strong modifying effect. The impact of high growth expectations on subsequent profit performance is stronger for entrepreneurs with a lower level of education. Moreover, these effects are amplified by ethnicity. They are much stronger for ethnic Russian entrepreneurs compared with ethnic Latvian entrepreneurs.     

Constructions of whiteness: latvian women workers in post-war britain

This article examines the ways in which Latvian women recruited by Britain as ‘volunteer’ workers in 1946 were constructed by the state as superior to other female economic migrants entering the United Kingdom at the same time. It draws on the notion of the ‘wages of whiteness’ to show how the British state defined Latvians as superior to Caribbean women but also argues that whiteness itself is a multiple construct as Irish and Latvian women–both white–found themselves differentially positioned in the gender and ethnic division of labor developing in post-war Britain. Based on interviews with 25 now elderly Latvian women, the article adds personal testimonies to Paul's (Paul, K. (1997 Paul, K. 1997. Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press)) arguments about the significance of skin color vis-à-vis citizenship in post-war British immigration policy.     

The Evolution of Innovation Policy Governance Systems and Policy Capacities in the Baltic States

This paper analyzes the evolution of innovation policy (IP) governance systems in the Baltic States and discusses how this progression has influenced the development of long-term IP capacities. The Baltics must attend to their long-term policy capacities as they are going through a ‘catch-up’ process while being influenced by both historical socioeconomic legacies and pressures of the global political economy. At the same time, they have delegated key policy activities away from centers of policy making and moved toward increasingly fragmented IP governance models, which provide narrow feedback and policy learning mechanisms that complicate the creation of long-term policy capacities.     

Expressed attachment to Russia and social integration: the case of young Russian speakers in Latvia, 2004–2010

The aim of this article is to establish if expressed attachment to Russia, amongst surveyed Russian-speaking youths in 2004 and 2010 in Latvia, demonstrates any noteworthy correlations with factors promoting integration and feelings of belonging to Latvia. The correlation analysis shows that a sense of belonging to Russia and a sense of belonging to Latvia are not mutually exclusive. However, those Russian speakers in Latvia expressing a closer sense of belonging to Russia are also more likely to prefer an all-Russian environment, are skeptical of their rights and influence in Latvia, and are more likely to perceive discrimination in terms of citizenship status and ethnicity. These preferences suggest either a lack of integration or an “external homeland” influence.     

“An orgy of licence?” Democracy and property redistribution in Poland and the Baltics in their international context, 1918–1926

The article argues that property redistribution was a major tool of democratization and nationalization in Poland and the Baltics. It provided governments with a means to give peasants a stake in the new democratic states, thus empower the new titular nations and at the same time marginalize former elites, who became national minorities. The most significant acts of property redistribution were the land reforms passed between 1919 and 1925, which achieved the status of founding charters of the new states. Activists of the disenfranchised minorities conceptualized minority protection as the “Magna Carta” of the international order, which should contain the principle of national self-determination and thus safeguard private property, the protection of which was not clearly regulated by international law. By examining the contingencies of the aftermath of the war in East Central Europe as well as discussions about changing conceptions of property ownership in both East Central and Western Europe, the article shows that land reform was meant to counter Bolshevism, but, at the same time, created the impression abroad that the new states themselves displayed revolutionary tendencies and did not respect private property – an image that became a significant argument of interwar territorial revisionists.     

Populism in the Manifestos of Latvian Political Parties: Increasingly Used but Ineffective?

It is often stated that we live in an era of populist zeitgeist, namely, that populism today has become part of everyday politics. Despite systematic attempts to investigate the validity of this claim in Western European democracies, the situation in the Baltic states has been overlooked. This article marks the first attempt to investigate the dynamics of populism in the Latvian party manifestos by using novel research methodology to quantitatively estimate how populist Latvian political parties have become over an extensive period of time. Our findings reveal that in the last two decades populism has indeed become more widespread in Latvian party manifestos, yet it does not seem to be very effective and is largely primarily used by electorally unsuccessful parties.     

Mediated and unmediated access to the past: Assessing the memoir as literary genre

A survey was conducted of a number of younger generation members of Estonian and Latvian émigré communities (11 and 16 subjects, respectively) who had ‘returned’ to the ancestral homeland, to determine the reasons for their decision. A detailed questionnaire was provided for the respondents. Attempts were made to ascertain the subjects’ level of ‘Latvianness’ or ‘Estonianness’ and their emotional commitment to their new-found homeland. While the small sample may not provide definitive answers, the study gives richly suggestive insights into the thought processes and motivations of these young Baltic people.     

The economic output growth of Baltic countries in 1913–1938: a quantitative cross-country comparison

ABSTRACT

This article surveys and appends the available quantitative research on the interwar economic growth of Baltic countries to compare gross domestic product (GDP) (in 1990 Geary–Khamis dollars) growth in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania between 1913 and 1938 in a broad international context. Finland’s GDP per capita recovered to the 1913 level in 1923, in Estonia recovery was complete by 1922, in Lithuania by 1924, and in Latvia by 1924–1925. By high-end estimates, the growth performance of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania was not weaker than Finland’s. By 1938, the GDP per capita of all Baltic countries exceeded the level of the Soviet Union with the possible exception for Lithuania.     

First calculations of the total output of Latvia and Lithuania in the 1920s: a comparison

The contemporary system of national accounts (SNA) framework is used to compare the methodologies and to adjust the findings to allow for cross-country comparisons of the very first calculations of the total economic output of Lithuania in 1924 by Albinas Rimka (1886–1944) and of Latvia in 1925 by Alfrēds Ceihners (1899–1987). Ceihners’ notion of national income corresponds to the SNA concept of gross national income (GNI), while Rimka measured net national income (NNI). Rimka’s estimate has a downward bias, because he applied a fixed capital depreciation rate that was too high and did not include the value of noncommercial public sector services.