Formation of Threat Image and Identity Building in Latvia during the pre- and post-Accession Period to the EU and NATO
2007 (English)Student paper second term, 15 points / 22,5 hp
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
In this thesis, I explore if Latvia has experienced, during the last ten years, a change in identity and threat perception that could allow for the building of a “cooperative security community” in Northern Europe. Recent constructivist researches contend that such change is in progress in neighboring Estonia. This research, performed through a discourse analysis of political elite’s speeches, reveals the presence – explained by the concept of interim inconsequentiality - of two opposite identity/security discourses. I link the first, inclusive, discourse to Latvia’s Western socialization, but not to a change in identity, as I contend that both threat images and identity have been instrumentalized for the sake of the accession strategy. As for the second, exclusionary, discourse that shows a persistent distrust of both Russia and the ethnic Russian minorities, and is the more prevalent in terms of political behavior, I link it to Latvia’s identity as a small ethnic nation vulnerable to external pressures - an identity strengthened during the period by Russia’s behavior. I verify this thesis by exposing the exclusionary discourse’s salience on the EU integration issue. I conclude that the period of reference, far from resolving the security dilemma, has, on the contrary, reinforced it.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Huddinge: Institutionen för genus, kultur och historia , 2007. , p. 75
Keywords [en]
Instrumentalization, international socialization, Latvia, identity formation, security dilemma, threat perception
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-1146OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-1146DiVA, id: diva2:15202
Uppsok
samhälle/juridik
Supervisors
Examiners
2007-04-262007-04-262018-01-13