Sammendrag
Latvia had a brief experience with democracy and party pluralism between 1920 and 1934 when an authoritarian regime took over. After restoration of Latvia’s independence in 1991, a large number of political groups and parties emerged, some re-emerged.
The restoration of independence is formally based on the proclamation of independence 18 November 1918 and the Constitution of 1922, and citizenship was restored to Latvian citizens before the Soviet occupation in 1940 and their descendants. The question is: Do cleavages and contrasts that were underlying the structure of political opposition in the 1920s and 1930s re-emerge? Has nearly 50 years of Sovietization and communism, the absence of political contestation and independent political organizations, fundamentally changed the structure of cleavages and produced new conflicts?
In the 1960s, Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset found that party systems of Western democracies reflected fundamental cleavages that emerged in the course of history, and the party systems “froze” with the full extension of the franchise, leaving a stable system of political alternatives that reflected the most important historical contrasts. This thesis identifies the most profound political contrasts in Latvia between the wars as national-cultural identity, class and urban/rural residence/economy. The society was based for centuries on a feudal social system where language and culture served as markers of one’s social class. Also, there were a distinct difference between Eastern and “Catholic” Latgale district and “Germanized” Latvia. Religion played an important political role in Latgale.
The most significant change in the current party system is the apparent absence of the class conflict in the aftermath of Communism. The Socialist Party is an overwhelmingly “Russian” or “Non-Latvian” party. The development of a new social pluralism and social contrasts may lead to the re-emergence of the class conflict. The salient cleavage since 1990 has a strong ‘nationality’ component and relates to the struggle for restoration of independence, the definition of citizens and the position of the Latvian language and culture. The cleavage has its roots far down in history. The urban/rural contrast is another cleavage that has re-emerged, while the regional (Latgale) contrast seems to be both less significant, and has changed. In stead of “Catholic”, a stronger “Russian/Non-Latvian” component in the social structure and a poorer “Eastern” economy makes Latgale socially and politically still somewhat different from the three other districts.