The Commission of Historians in Latvia: 1999 to the present

In 1999, the President of Latvia, Guntis Ulmanis, created a Commission of Historians and charged it with investigating the nature and consequences for Latvians and Latvia of the two occupations (the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) the country experienced during the years of World War Two and afterwards. Special focus was to be direct to the Holocaust and to the multiple forms of repression practiced by the Soviet Communist regime. The Commission consisted of some 13-15 local, regional, and international scholars with specialized knowledge and, in some cases, personal experience, with the double occupation. The findings of the Commission were to be published in the form of a book series, with each volume devoted to a particular topic and containing reports delivered at international conferences or generated by ongoing research. The historical knowledge thus accumulated was to be disseminated widely, in the hope that it would become a basis for further research on this crucial and still-controversial period of Latvian history. A quantitative analysis of the twenty-seven Commission volumes published to date offers a capsule view of the Commission’s research efforts and research strategies, describes the subjects covered so far, and summarizes some of the criticism attracted by the Commission as well as its contributions to the sum total of Latvian history.     

Between national and European foreign policy: the role of Latvia and Romania in the EU’s policy towards Central Asia

This article explores whether and to what extent new member states of the European Union (EU) seek to pursue their national foreign policy goals towards Central Asia through the EU rather than bilaterally. To do so, it focuses on Latvia and Romania. While the article finds evidence of Romanian attempts to project its interests in the region onto the EU level, Latvia appears to rely more extensively on the EU level to pursue its goals towards Central Asia. Using insights from the literature on Europeanization of national foreign policy, the article explains this finding with reference to four variables that determine whether a member state will seek to upload its national foreign policy preferences onto the EU level, namely the perceived salience of the policy goals, the extent to which member states can carve out a niche, their perceived capabilities and the level of Europeanization of their national foreign policies.     

PēTeris STUčka and the National Question

Pēteris Stu?ka, the main Latvian theorist of Marxism, Chairman of the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic, and an instigator of mass terror, repeatedly claimed to be against all nationalisms, even when “under a socialist label”. But when it came to his native Latvia, Stu?ka was not so quick to subscribe to Leninist internationalism in practice as he was in theory, often demonstrating conflicting views and attitudes, and at times behaving in a manner that would have made any Latvian nationalist proud.     

Recent Publications on Baltic History

This article explores different geographies of tourism, femininities and livelihood in post-socialist rural Latvia, with a focus on women's entrepreneurship within rural tourism. Based on a case study in the Cēsis district, its aim is to analyze women's livelihood strategies, including both economic and lifestyle-oriented motives behind entrepreneurship within tourism. The study illustrates women's day-to-day livelihood practices and how they organize their lives in time and space. The article reveals how women negotiate their ‘livelihood action space’, which includes a number of paradoxes between the quest for independence while facing both economic and social restrictions.     

Policy learning from crisis in financial regulation and supervision: comparative analysis of Estonia,Latvia, and Sweden

ABSTRACT

The goal of the article is to explore comparatively whether the crisis of 2008–10 has led to policy learning in financial regulation and supervision by civil servants in Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. The article discusses how various factors can influence policy learning, including the acknowledgment of failure, blame shifting, analytical tractability of the policy problems, and the influence of external actors. We show that although the experience of the crisis varied significantly between the three countries, the policy lessons learnt are broadly similar in all three countries, due to the external influence of the European Union.     

Austerity versus pragmatism: a comparison of Latvian and Polish economic policies during the great recession and their consequences ten years later

ABSTRACT

Despite many initial similarities, Latvia and Poland represent two opposite extremes in terms of practical and theoretical approaches to the economic crisis. The Polish government applied a ‘pragmatic’ approach to fight the recession, based on expansionary fiscal policies and currency devaluation. Conversely, the Latvian administration opted for the Austerity and internal devaluation strategy. Consequently, the objective of this paper is to analyze, from the perspective of political economy, the strategies chosen for the economic crisis management and their effects in Latvia and Poland, in light of the main EU narratives about its causes and responses. The research contends that the economic performance of both countries during the crisis was due to their respective economic structures. On the one hand, Poland is a bigger, more diversified and industrialized economy, with fewer channels of vulnerability and could apply expansionary policies effectively. On the contrary, the economic model established in Latvia generated a high exposure to external shocks, in particular, with a double vulnerability in the banking sector. In this context, due to internal and external motives, the Latvian government decided to apply the austerity and internal devaluation strategy, worsening the economic decline and the subsequent recovery.     

The Institutional Roots of Anti-Corruption Policies: Comparing the Three Baltic States

The idea to establish Independent Anti-Corruption Agencies (IACAs) first appeared on the international agenda in the late 1990s, and has since become a powerful subject for discourse. Responses to this idea have varied among the Baltic states. We ask why and compare the development of Baltic strategies and institutions. Our discussion focuses on how national political systems, perceptions of and discourse surrounding corruption, and external pressures on domestic structures have influenced the initial institutional choice. The resulting policies look very much alike, despite their differing points of departure.     

Stigmatized cohabitation in the Latvian region of the eastern Baltic littoral: nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The social history of coresidence arrangements in the Latvian region suggests that forms of cohabitation without marriage were present in the Latvian population since the eighteenth century when empirical evidence became available. Before the twentieth century, however, these forms remained marginal and seldom involved choice. The subject of severe criticism until the 1960s–1970s, such forms become more widespread thereafter as the Latvian population began to exhibit many key features of a second demographic revolution. Post-Soviet censuses now suggest that such coresidence patterns in the Latvian population approach the levels of those in most western European states, including the Scandinavian countries.     

From Responsible Disclosure Policy (RDP) towards State Regulated Responsible Vulnerability Disclosure Procedure (hereinafter – RVDP): The Latvian approach

Cybersecurity is an integral part of security. It plays a tremendous role in modern society. It encompasses technical, organizational and legislative measures created for the purpose of protecting and minimizing impacts from cyber incidents. Any software may contain bugs or security holes. Hackers frequently discover such flaws and, without vendor's consent, disclose step-by-step instructions about vulnerability to the public, disregarding the possible IT security risk. Many vendors already have introduced responsible disclosure policies or “bug bounty” programs. In 2013 the Netherlands launched the first state responsible disclosure Guidelines. Guidelines contain principles, definitions and organizational measures, necessary for responsible disclosure policy as a state policy.Latvia decided to draft Regulation on responsible disclosure procedure. In March 2016, the Ministry of Defence created a working group. The goal of the drafters was: 1) to prepare amendment to Law on the Security of Information Systems to create legislative framework for responsible vulnerability disclosure process; 2) to draft an amendment to Section 241 (3) of Criminal Law to create a guaranty against prosecution (waiver) for persons who act in accordance with responsible disclosure process. The paper provides an insight into this process, difficulties faced by drafters and presents provisional results of the legislative draft and lessons to be learnt.