The (non) Europeanization of Latvia’s Far Right

Abstract

Latvia’s far right has had a great deal of political influence since the late 1980s, when nativist movements played a key role in mobilizing political opposition to Soviet power. Far-right parties have been in 16 of the 22 government coalitions in Latvia between 1993 and 2023. Since 2010, the National Alliance (NA), a merger between an established far-right party and a more youthful political party, has come to dominate Latvia’s far right and has been a part of every government coalition from 2011-2023. This article begins with a discussion of Europeanization, the Europeanization of political parties, and the qualitative methodology used in the article to examine the impact of Latvia’s membership in the European Union on NA’s international links and program. The article then outlines the development and influence of Latvia’s far-right. The following sections examine links between Latvia’s far right and Europe’s far right and the impact of Europe on NA’s ideology and program. It finds little evidence of Europeanization of Latvia’s far right. Latvia’s far right is more hawkish toward Russia than the West European right and also enjoys greater domestic influence and respectability. “New nativist” anti-immigration and cultural Marxism themes have lower salience in Latvia where Russian-speakers are perceived as a bigger and more immediate threat than Muslims or “Woke” activists.