Gendered political subjectivity in post-soviet latvia

Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 631 – 640, 2002 Copyright D 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0277-5395/02/$ – see front matter

PII S0277-5395(02)00341-2

GENDERED POLITICAL SUBJECTIVITY IN POST-SOVIET LATVIA Ieva Zake Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Thompson Hall 608, 200 Hicks Way, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

Synopsis — Political texts such as parties’ pre-election programs, manifestos, slogans, or TV ads can be analyzed as narratives using multidisciplinary methods. Such an analysis can be especially beneficial in the political context of Latvia where the prevalent political rhetoric contains post-Soviet legacies, the impact of international integration and nationalist projects of ethnic isolationism. This article is based on a study of political documents of parties in Latvia and their story of what characterizes an empowered political subjectivity. It consists of three main themes—the family, the borders and the order. In all of them, the political subjectivity is masculinized and concentrated on developing various levels of social and political differentiation, especially ethnic and gender stratification. Such a political rhetoric leads to the exclusion from decision-making of women and other groups that do not fit prevalent characterizations of the political subjectivity. D 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION Political texts are unique mechanisms of narrative creation. Politicians and public policy planners construct their documents as stories with beginnings, middles, and ends that ‘‘represent reality and test their versions of the truth’’ (Kaplan, 1993: 179; Roe, 1994). Political narratives tie together political propositions and provide a certain level of truth-value and objectivity. This study focuses on one type of such political narratives, namely, the story about the citizen and her political subjectivity. de Lauretis (1984: 106) proposes that subjectivity is constituted in narratives, their meanings and their relations of desire. This article argues that political subjectivity as reflected in political statements, programs, manifestos, slogans, and their narratives is also gendered. ‘‘Political subjectivity’’ is an underlying conception about who qualifies as an empowered political subject, what kind of subjects (groups) embody and are entitled to political power, according to whose interests and needs are political goals defined and what features are considered crucial in achieving these aims. This article focuses on political narratives and rhetoric in an increasingly globalized and post-Soviet Latvia. Latvia is a small country on the margins of Eastern Europe with a population of about 2.3 million (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, 1999). It existed 631

as an independent state from 1918 till 1940 when it was forcefully incorporated into the Soviet Union. In 1991 it regained independence and international recognition as a sovereign state. The post-Soviet government aimed at creating a democratic nation-state with free market economy. Undoubtedly, considerable progress has been achieved in making Latvia a politically open and economically developing nation. At the same time, this project has been continuously undermined by a combination of certain political ideals and hopes. First, a part of Latvia’s contemporary situation includes powerful remains of the Soviet regime such as huge bureaucratic apparatus, corruption, disrespect for private property and individual interests, and glorification of the strong state. Second, a considerable segment of Latvian society and political elite maintains ideas about renovating the idealized ‘‘agricultural paradise’’ of the First Republic—the pre-Soviet nationalist state. This leads to economic policies that limit international trade, set strict customs regulations and institute overwhelming state control over any business activities. Finally, some in fear of possible threats from Russia and others trying to assert Latvia as a ‘‘Western’’ nation have put a lot of effort into Latvia’s rapid integration into the European Union, WTO, NATO, and other global market and political networks. These often contradictory political trends have shaped Latvia’s contemporary political context and its promising albeit problematic tendencies (see, for example,

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Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, 1998; Fafo Institute For Applied Social Sciences, 2000; Hood, Valhne, & Kilis, 1997; Latvian Center for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, 1999; Muizhnieks, 1995; Norgaard & Johannsen, 1999; Plakans, 1995; Skultans, 1999; Smith, 1994; Steen, 2000; Timma, 2002; United Nations Development Program, 1998, 1999; Vebers & Karklina, 1995; Zake, 2002; Zile, 2001). Trying to understand Latvia’s dominant political subjectivity, I employ texts issued by Latvian political parties during the most recent parliamentary election campaign of 1998. I collected this data in numerous field trips to Latvia in 1998 and 1999, during which I studied the Latvian mass media, reviewed periodicals, and visited the offices and parliamentary bureaus of most political parties. My analysis is based on the programs, propaganda materials, and internal party documents of almost all of the 21 political parties that participated in the elections of 1998, including the biggest political parties such as the neo-liberal People’s Party (Tautas Partija), the centrist Latvia’s Way (Latvijas Cels), the leftist Social Democrats (Latvijas Socialdemokratu Apvieniba), and the Latvian nationalist For Fatherland and Freedom (Tevzemei un Brivibai), as well as smaller, more marginal political forces. I analyze the political documents in the context of current economic and political tendencies by applying Gusfield’s (1981) idea that political rhetoric strives to ‘‘own’’ certain issues and political ideas. For example, some political forces more than others choose to use themes such as the family or the order. They ‘‘own’’ the rhetoric about these political concepts and dictate the acceptable language of debate. To study this process, I employ Roe’s (1994) conception of ‘‘intertext’’ as a synthesized meta-story that is revealed and re-constructed by comparing diverse political texts and noting recurring and linked themes. I am searching for the intertext of the political subjectivity, that is, a narrative of what features grant political agency and power. Such an analysis is especially interesting in the context of Latvia and Eastern Europe where political subjectivity combines pre-Soviet political traditions, postSoviet attitudes, isolationism and anti-democractism of nationalists, and the region’s international ambitions. This analysis enables me to apply a feminist perspective, which uncovers the masculinized character of political narratives and what it means for women’s political opportunities. This article adds to the scarce Western and feminist scholarship about Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and Latvia in particular. The studies that came out of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia generally focus on

women’s organizations, women’s reproductive rights, labor market issues and women’s roles in the family (for example, Fischer & Harsanyi, 1994; Guobuzaite, 1998; Kanopiene, 1998; Koroleva, 1997; Purvaneckiene, 1998; Rungule, 1997; Trapenciere, 1997; White, 1997). They attempt to explain to the Western advocates of gender equality why post-communist women tend to ‘‘retreat’’ to the domestic sphere and accept the ideology of strictly differentiated gender roles and identities. At the same time, Western feminist analyses have been preoccupied with understanding the collapse of the socialist ideals in the region and creating a new way to criticize both capitalist and socialist patriarchy. They tend to use Eastern Europe to envision a so-called ‘‘post-patriarchal’’ or ‘‘radical’’ democracy (for example, Eisenstein, 1993; Fraser, 1997; Grapard, 1997). Furthermore, they concentrate on women’s political, economic, and domestic positions in transitional societies and the impact of nationalism (for example, Bridger, 1999; Corrin, 1992; Eisenstein, 1993; Gal, 1997; Lapidus, 1992; Ramet, 1999; Wolchik, 1998). Both Eastern European and Western researchers note the decrease in women’s participation in political decision-making in post-communist societies (Ostrovska, 1997; Watson, 1997). However, very few of them attempt to explain the process of women’s political marginalization by studying the new, post-Soviet political rhetoric and its construction of the political subject. An exception is Rukszto’s (1997) research on the new model of citizen as an entrepreneur in Polish political discourse. I argue that the study of political rhetoric is a more inclusive and therefore better way to analyze changes in the Eastern European political context. This article’s focus on the rhetoric demonstrates that nationalism, new economy, and gender ideology, which have been previously studied separately, all work together to make political power inaccessible to women.

CONTEMPORARY TENDENCIES OF INTEGRATION AND DIFFERENTIATION Latvia re-gained its political and economic autonomy as a result of political changes in the Soviet Union. In 1988 – 1989 alternatives to the Communist Party, such as the People’s Front, the Environment Protection Club and the Green Party were established and participated in the first multi-party elections to the Supreme Council (the Soviet form of Parliament). By a margin of only a few votes, the Supreme Council declared Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union on May 4, 1991. Early in the 1990s, the new government started a number of economic reforms concern-

Gendered political subjectivity in post soviet Latvia

ing the de-nationalization of private property, returning agricultural lands to their pre-Soviet owners or their descendants, and privatization of state owned enterprises and services. At the same time, the disruption of economic links with the rest of the Soviet Union caused the big industries dependent on the resources imported from other Soviet republics to gradually close down, laying off significant numbers of employees (United Nations Development Program, 1998). These people, mostly from the major cities, initiated various types of private business (Muizhnieks, 1995). The economic and political reforms have been influenced by Latvia’s increasing integration into a variety of European and global networks. This has entailed developing ‘‘a Western-type liberal market system based on the principles of free competition and private property, and gradual harmonization of Latvia’s economic environment with the demands of the European Union’’ (Ministry of Economics, 1997: 89). The post-Soviet politicians have defined such a political and economic direction as the basis of Latvia’s future stability, prosperity and democracy. Therefore, for example, since 1991, numerous government institutions have been set up to promote Latvia’s EU membership (United Nations Development Program, 1999). According to Latvian economists, the postSoviet governments have been consistent and reasonably successful in making the country worthy of and friendly to foreign investments (for example, Karnite, 1998). Among all Central and Eastern European countries, Latvia is the fifth biggest recipient of international investments (Medvedevshkina & Slakota, 1998; Melnace, 1998). Unsurprisingly, these political and economic trends are usually suggested and regulated by recommendations from international administrative and political institutions (such as EU bureaucracies, NATO, etc.), financial structures (such as the IMF, World Bank and European Bank of Reconstruction and Development) (Ministry of Economics, 1997: 88) and a variety of non-governmental organizations (for example, the Soros Foundation, the United Nations and its diverse branches, World Wildlife Foundation, and others) (United Nations Development Program, 1999). While internationally Latvian society has been aiming at homogenization, internally it has been increasingly concerned with social, political, economic, and cultural differentiation. The most powerful example of this is the issue of citizenship. In 1994, the Saeima (the post-Soviet form of Parliament) adopted a Citizenship Law that granted citizenship rights exclusively to the descendants of the citizens of the First Republic (1918 – 1940). Those who had

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arrived in Latvia during the Soviet occupation and their descendants—approximately 646,000 people (United Nations Development Program, 1998) did not become citizens automatically, but were required to go through a slow bureaucratic process of tests and document preparation. Citizenship in the post-Soviet Latvian state was defined and designed as an instrument of ethnic Latvians’ survival, not of social integration. This became clear during the summer of 1998 when Latvia’s government, following the directions of the EU human rights institutions, adopted changes to the Citizenship Law allowing children of non-descendants of the First Republic citizens to receive citizenship without having to follow the usual procedures (Latvian Center for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, 1999). In response to the changes, the nationalist political parties, especially the Latvian nationalist For Fatherland and Freedom, launched a wide campaign for a referendum on the issue. They argued that granting citizenship without testing applicants’ knowledge of language or history means suicide for the Latvian state and for Latvianess as such (Ir vajadzigi grozijumi vairakos likumos, 1998). Additionally, they tried to stir popular opposition against the West intervening in Latvia’s internal affairs. Moreover, the nationalists convinced the public that this referendum was their final chance to voice their opinions on the matter of citizenship. In the end, the legislative changes were preserved by a very small margin—52.54% of the vote (Latvian Center for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, 1999). However, the overall political polemic around the referendum revealed the non-integrational meaning of citizenship in Latvia. While the nationalists used the opportunity to represent non-citizens and their children as the ultimate Other, the liberals (such as Latvia’s Way, the People’s Party or the Democratic Party Master) merely claimed that these children are not too threatening because there were so few of them anyway (Grozijumiem japaliek, 1998; Musu lemums ir versts uz nakotni, 1998; Nedrikst atkartot kludas, 1998). In general, the referendum of 1998 was pivotal in allowing the nationalists define the meaning of social and ethnic difference. It also legitimized a situation where one part of the population is granted power to decide about the inclusion or exclusion of the other from the definition of ‘‘the people’’ and political subjectivity. I suggest that besides ethnic and citizenship issues, there are other increasingly powerful levels of differentiation that shape the definition of Latvian political subjectivity, especially political assertions of gender difference. I argue that this process is particularly visible in the meta-story or intertext of political

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subjectivity that I reconstruct from the texts of Latvia’s political forces, as I now outline.

POLITICAL SUBJECTIVITY AND ITS GENDER The intertext of political subjectivity that arises from a comparison of political texts consists of three main themes. The first theme is the recurring concept of the family as the social and political foundation of the new society. The second theme is the borders—their reestablishment, protection, crossing, and encounter with the outside world. The third is the order, which is presented as the ultimate goal of the political subject’s activities.

The Family While this theme appears in a number of political programs, it is ‘‘owned,’’ that is, politically most eloquently articulated in the texts of two political forces—the People’s Party (Tautas Partija) and the Democrats’ Party (Demokratu Partija). The People’s Party is a recent neo-liberal political force built around the charismatic leadership of the businessman Andris Skele. It promotes the values of entrepreneurship, focuses on economic development and supports decreased state interventionism (see Zake, 2002). The party gained 21.55% of the vote in the parliamentary elections of 1998 (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, 1999). The Democrats’ Party is a minor political force organized around the association of the families with more than three children. It dissolved after its failure in the 1998 elections. The People’s Party (PP) structured its pre-election program according to the familial scheme with subsections ‘‘Children,’’ ‘‘Parents,’’ and ‘‘Grandparents’’ (www.tautaspartija.lv). Such a method of organizing a political document implies that the PP views the family as the foundation and the ultimate organizing principle of the social reality. This political prioritizing of the family is an open critique of the Soviet anti-familialism and sacrifice of the family in the name of the collective. The PP actually identifies the needs of the family with the needs of society as a whole, declaring that: ‘‘if after eight years each family with two breadwinners is able to raise and send to school three children, we will know—we have reached our main goal’’ (Tautas Partija, 1998).1 Paradoxically, the PP promotes traditional conceptions of the family combined with an assumption that both parents work outside the home, which is similar to, for example, the ideology of the National Liberal Party in Romania (Rueschmeyer, 1994: 235).

According to the PP, the family originates the national statehood therefore ‘‘the state has to be interested in strengthening families’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 2). The state is posited as the family’s protector because the family guarantees its development. In fact, the state and the nation do not consist of individuals, but families. Citizens and their political interests are defined as directly related to their familial positions. Families embody and reproduce the most important qualities of the state, for example, private property: ‘‘home and land must be private property inherited through the family and kin. This makes private property sacred and untouchable’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 2). Also, through private ownership, the family serves a nationalist function: ‘‘the family guarantees the preservation of the traditions of kinship and Latvian culture’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 2). In this context it is important to note that only citizens, the majority of whom are Latvians, can own the private property, according to the existing legislation. The PP’s ‘‘family’’ therefore functions to maintain specifically ethnically Latvian traditions. It is a particularly Latvian family that the PP posits as the foundation of the new state. Similarly to Lithuanian and Hungarian conservatives who view nation, country, and family as one unit (Einhorn, 1991; Zvinkliene, 1999), the People’s Party’s rhetoric implies that the true citizen is to be a member of the Latvian national family. The People’s Party’s ‘‘family’’ does the work of gender differentiation. It is a highly ‘‘heterosexualized’’ subject of the new state. For example, the visual symbol of the People’s Party is a drawing of two parents (where ‘‘the woman’’ is considerably shorter than ‘‘the man’’) and three children. The family’s purpose is not only to preserve ethnic culture and private property, but also to reproduce the values of management, leadership and traditional gender roles. Therefore the People’s Party in its documents often refers to the family as a small enterprise creating a prosperous middle class (www.tautaspartija.lv). Moreover, the PP’s family is very similar to the economic model of small, family-owned enterprise suggested by international experts as the basis of Latvia’s social and economic development (see, for example, King, 1997). The family teaches values of trust, personal attachment to one’s work, devotion and loyalty, team spirit, stability, division of labor, and traditional gender roles. As such, the traditional family is a ‘‘training site’’ for the new generation of managers, who will make Latvia capitalist and competitive in the world economy. The PP’s ideal is a social agreement between the state and the people that resembles the traditional

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relationship between fathers-breadwinnners and their families. This is represented by strongly feminized images: ‘‘a mother who is waiting for her children to return home has to feel secure about them. . .. When children see a grandmother who is unable to pay her rent debts, they lose faith in the future’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 2). At the same time, there are no images of helpless and passive men in the PP’s political texts. Thus, the feminized ‘‘non-agents’’ need protection that is promised by the masculinized agents—the authors of the program, that is, the PP’s politicians. They, as the fathers of the renovated national family, can then claim the position of leadership. Thus, the People’s Party uses the heteronormative, father-ruled, traditional family as a foundation of national statehood, political stability, and economic development. The justification for the rule of fathers, as I argue below, is its capacity to establish social order, stable values, prosperity, and security. Political forces, such as the People’s Party, have successfully transformed the social anxiety of the post-Soviet transition into a call for stable and secure families. This rhetoric signals social nostalgias for the imagined modernism of the West and for ‘‘the golden age’’ of the interwar nationalist states that haunt not only Latvia, but Eastern Europe in general (Braun & Scheinberg, 1997; Cheles, Ferguson, & Vaughan, 1993; Hood et al., 1997; McFaul, 1993; Merkl & Weinberg, 1997; Ramet, 1998, 1999; Tismaneanu, 1998). Additionally, it merges public and private spheres by establishing the father’s rule in both on the basis of the ‘‘neo-traditional family’’ (Josephson & Burack, 1998). It implies that the social agreement between the state and its citizens is based on clearly defined masculine and feminine domestic roles (Brown, 1995), thus contributing to the construction of gender differentiated, hierarchical economic, and political citizenship. The Democracts’ Party (DP) adds other aspects to the family theme. According to the DP, the family is a mini-replication of the state. The state and the family are in a macro-microcosmic relation: ‘‘The family = ministate. Ministate = the whole state’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 10). The family and the state do not just share important qualities; they are co-constitutive and can be reduced to each other: ‘‘a big family = the future of the nation! A small family = the ideology of the destruction of the nation! Families without children = the cemetery of the nation!’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 10). According to the DP, the family is the actual biological and social reproductive unit of the Latvian nation, not just its symbolic essence. The family reproduces the citizen-subject. This makes the domestic care-taking a form of public work: ‘‘raising

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children is the most significant work for the state and has to be rewarded’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 10). Though this rhetoric seems to be placing women at the center of the political arena and making motherhood their political mission, it promotes essentialized gender (even sex) stratification because political subjectivity becomes linked to one’s biological reproductive capabilities. This is another call for the revival of the traditional family of modernity. It prescribes social and biological individual gender roles in the name of the children, who are identified with the state and the nation. Notably, writers on neo-traditional family-values in the United States emphasize the need for good socialization of children (e.g. Josephson & Burack, 1998), while in Latvia children are crucial as ‘‘the living bodies’’ of the nation. In general, the Democrats propose a society based on national and gender identity, which is in radical opposition to the antiethnic (at least formally) and gender-less Soviet social system. Their theme of the family serves to promote nationalist and neo-traditional politics in order to counter any possible remnants of the Soviet values. Jointly, the People’s Party and the Democrats’ Party develop the theme of the family in order to articulate politicized nostalgia for a modernist, stabilized nation state, notions of private property and anti-Sovietism. The new society has to be based on the traditional family. It serves as a guide in the postSoviet value confusion, and political and social disorientation. A crucial element of this ideology is the assignment of gender roles and reproductive responsibilities to individuals. I argue that this is not just a short-term anti-Soviet reaction, but rather a far-reaching political project. It ensures that the political subjects of the new Latvia are not the gender-less Soviet people, but rather responsible fathers and caretaking mothers with securely differentiated identities. However, as Wendy Brown has argued ‘‘the ‘natural peace’ of the family is consequent to the naturalized subordination of women and children to men, revealing liberal ontology to be fundamentally rather than contingently gendered as male dominance and female submission’’ (Brown, 1995: 150). Thus, the prevalence of the ‘‘natural family’’ in the current Latvian political rhetoric leads to the reduction of women to their reproductive roles and making them politically insignificant non-agents.

Borders The theme of (national) borders and encounter with the outside world is specially important in the context of Latvia’s real and imagined international

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integration. On the one hand, both public and politicians view global involvement as the only escape from the heritage of the decades spent behind ‘‘the iron curtain’’ (United Nations Development Program, 1999). On the other hand, local nationalist politicians argue that the import of free market and liberal individualist policies from the West are a threat to the recently established national autonomy. They argue that globalization implies not only economic, but also ideological and cultural transformation, which brings about materialism, selfishness and loss of ethnic uniqueness. However, it has also become clear that cross-national organizations and corporate actors are dependent on active support from the nation states that can ensure social and political stability and welcoming conditions (Sassen, 1996: 25). Global processes are not in absolute opposition to strong nation-states. Rather, local political subjects (such as Latvian politicians) are forced to continuously negotiate the interests of national autonomy, the goals of re-establishing the national borders with the needs of international capitalism and increasing global homogenization. These complex tasks and the ways Latvia’s politicians approach them are reflected in their rhetorical use of the theme of borders. First, this rhetoric incorporates a concern for securing the national border. The neo-liberal People’s Party, the Latvian nationalist For Freedom and Fatherland (Tevzemei un Brivibai) and two small centrist forces, the New Party (Jauna Partija) and the Party of Latvia’s Revival (Latvijas Atdzimsanas Partija), all promised in their political documents to put the state border in order (Velesanas, 1998: 2, 5, 13). The Social Democrats (Socialdemokratu Apvieniba) wrote that they will ensure the border and custom control in order to protect the rights of the state and its population (Latvijas Socialdemokratu Apvieniba, 1998). The Latvian Farmer’s Union (Latvijas Zemnieku Savieniba) assured that under its leadership the state would close the border for contraband and protect internal markets (Latvijas Zemnieku Savieniba, 1998). This political rhetoric identifies the state and the nation with securely protected borders. The border is a literal representation of the state, therefore guarding or putting in order the border means protecting and ‘‘ordering’’ the state internally. On the one hand, this is a nationalist rhetoric reacting to the destruction of Latvia’s national border by the Soviet regime. On the other, it is also a patriarchal rhetoric, which identifies political subjectivity with an ability to order, define, and protect the state border. Those who control the national border are the valid political subjects and empowered leaders. They can decide both the outer

limits and the internal principles of the community. Such a political subjectivity is based on the power of some groups over others within the protected borders. This rhetoric, as pointed out by Schopflin (1997), is not unique to Latvia, but is present in almost all postcommunist nationalist societies in Eastern and Central Europe. In Latvian political texts, the national border and statehood in general are articulated in terms of feminized fragility that requires masculinized protection. The active agents of this process are the border police, army, and government, in which women are not full participants. Women are not recruited to military; there are few of them in the Parliament— 15% in 1993, 8% in 1995, and 17% in 1997 (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, 1999); none of the postSoviet governments have had more than one woman member and women rarely participate in government level international negotiations. Like in Lithuania where ‘‘legislative and executive power is actually a ‘men’s club’’’ (Kanopiene, 1998: 78), women in Latvia do not actively construct the meanings of national border and its protection. Rather, they are in need of protection behind secure borders. The political use of the theme of borders reflects the orientation of Latvian politicians toward building an enclosed, introspective and ethnically and gender stratified community. It is based on a stable and defined identity system—a nationalist and masculinized utopia, where those who protect the national, external border are entitled to define internal social and political distinctions too. Thus, they can act as political and national agents. Or, as Slobin (1997) points out, the previously suppressed differences between the sexes are now necessary for the new states to reaffirm their national identity. Thus, postSoviet political subjectivity links the fatherly masculinity and ethnic identity creating what Nelson (1998) calls ‘‘the national manhood.’’ According to it, those who cannot protect the national border and do not embody ‘‘national manhood’’ (such as women, nonLatvians, non-citizens) are eventually excluded from becoming political subjects. How does this border-protecting political agency relate to the demands of global capitalism? The task of both strengthening national borders and making them sufficiently transparent for international integration is a serious challenge to the political parties. For example, the People’s Party wrote that Latvia would assert its place in European and world processes by preserving its independence and national self-awareness (Tautas Partija, 1998). For Freedom and Fatherland asserts that ‘‘Latvia must be Latvian’’ and that ‘‘only strict immigration and citizenship policies and national self-

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respect in international relations will guarantee the free development of the Latvian nation’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 3). The ultra-nationalist fringe group Helsinki-86 argues that all foreign affairs must achieve the world’s acknowledgement of Latvia’s former occupation by the USSR (Partiju, apvienibu, savienibu prieksvelesanu programmas, kandidatu saraksti un zinas par kandidatiem 7. Saeimas velesanam, 1998: 7). This rhetoric suggests that the main motivation for maintaining foreign relations is to re-assert Latvia’s independence. International contacts are understood as symbolic acts manifesting Latvia’s self-awareness and autonomy. The relations with the rest of the world stand in for independence and its international recognition. The world outside the borders seems to exist solely for the sake of acknowledging Latvia’s autonomy. Such a political rhetoric promotes Latvia as an isolated community locked inside its own borders and concerned only with itself. Latvian political subjectivity values merely its own independence and self-interest. This rhetoric promotes fears of inter-dependency and elevates independence as a value within itself. Such a political orientation toward a self-enclosed and isolated statehood makes Latvia increasingly vulnerable and easy to manipulate. Foreign relations are not concerned with building cooperation, but with endless arguments over borderlines and custom regulations. The growth of foreign investments, import of foreign goods, or import of Latvian timber is often met with public suspicion as ‘‘selling the fatherland.’’ This has an impact on internal politics as well. It makes the community unable to accept criticism and concerned solely with maintaining rigid ethnic, gender, age, and class borderlines. As pointed out by Nancy Fraser (1997: 143), such political conceptions also have gendered meanings—masculine autonomy vs. deviant, feminine dependency. In the rhetoric of Latvian politicians, the masculinized values of independence and individualism are prioritized above the feminized connectedness, inter-dependence, and cooperation. The result is a rhetorical construction of women (femininity) as dependent and therefore not national enough. Paradoxically, the more global capitalism and international integration change Latvia, the more desperately its local political subjectivity becomes tied to stable identities, secure borders, isolation, and independence. The dominant political parties are not helping to envision new externally and internally beneficial ways towards Latvia’s cooperation with the world. Their rhetoric promotes an identity-based and self-centered community (‘‘national manhood’’) held together by fears of never-ending threats from Russia, the West, or hidden internal traitors.

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Order The analysis of the political intertext thus far has revealed a political subject who is a father, ethnically Latvian, and concerned with defining and maintaining the community’s borders. The third theme explains the growing importance of gender and other delineations in the new social, political, and economic reality in Latvia. Their goal is to achieve complete stability, order, and balance. For example, the liberal-centrist Latvia’s Way promised that by voting for them, the Latvian population will vote for life without dangerous, unpredictable experiments and shattering, for stable development, for steady policy (Latvijas Cels, 1998). The Latvian nationalists For Freedom and Fatherland promised that they will ‘‘bring Latvia to the security, harmony and prosperity’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 3). The People’s Party wrote: ‘‘we want order. Let there be order’’ (www.tautaspartija.lv). The centrist New Party proclaimed: ‘‘we will create a spiritually ordered, safe and just environment’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 5). The Farmers’ Union declared that their goal is a nation living in safety, prosperity, and mutual understanding (Latvijas Zemnieku Savieniba, 1998). The Latvia’s Unity Party (Latvijas Vienibas Partija) asserted: ‘‘we have come to put our life in order’’ (Velesanas, 1998: 9). These political forces declared as their political goal social predictability, prosperity, stable development, harmony, and security/safety. Their rhetoric also implies that the current state of affairs is unhealthy, disharmonious, disordered, and chaotic. The political intertext paints a picture of a deep social crisis, caused by rapid, unpredictable changes, and general destabilization. The political forces are therefore leading a symbolic crusade against the corrupting forces of social ills and disorganization. The theme of order promises to the voters a political regime of stability, discipline, and social segregation; a social system of political order, social harmony, bordered identities, and gender, ethnic and class differences. Moreover, this social stability will be achieved by naturalizing the power of some groups over others or those who ‘‘own’’ political subjectivity over those who are not entitled to it. In the context of the previous elements of political rhetoric, the empowered subjects are the heads of the national family (men), managers of the new companies (men), and ethnic Latvians. In fact, during the 1998 election campaign a number of political parties and their leaders (men) openly promoted themselves as representatives of the new Latvian business and breadwinners of the family. The People’s Party released a newspaper that featured a long

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interview with its leader Andris Skele entitled: ‘‘A Man’s Duty: at Home with Andris Skele’’ (Viriesa pienakums: majas ar Andri Skeli, 1998). The liberal oriented Democratic Party The Master (Demokratiska Partija Saimnieks) constructed their TV ad as a conversation between a father and a son about work, joy, and responsibility. The dominant political intertext suggests that the new class of entrepreneurs is the foundation of the long-awaited order and stability. This utopia also contains important messages about ethnic and gender differences as it proposes a rule of Latvians – managers – fathers. It is the rule of traditionally gendered subjects, who bring their managerial role to the family, their familial position to the business, and both of them to the state. This political rhetoric implicitly disempowers women, non-Latvians, noncitizens, and non-business groups while brining about social order and disciplined harmony based on the rule of fathers and businessmen. Moreover, one’s ability to define various group differences becomes the pivotal source of political power. It belongs to the ‘‘fathers’’ or ‘‘the national men.’’ They embody sameness, protect borders, and establish order in the community. They are also able to define and maintain the internal norms of differentiation, and possess social authority. They are political subjects. Such a political rhetoric and conception of political agency cannot be explained solely by the post-Soviet context or pre-Soviet patriarchal traditions. Their justification comes from the values of the new national class of businessmen and their global aspirations. The dominant political rhetoric in Latvia is not democratically oriented. The theme of order reflects its orientation toward the establishment of a stabilized, disciplined, and stratified social system. It is a ‘‘regime of differences,’’ which is implemented by an identity-based political subjectivity. As a result, women’s attempts to gain political agency are hindered because femininity is absent from articulations of legitimate political subjectivity. Moreover, women seeking to participate in politics and being political agents are accused of de-stabilizing the social order and egoistically creating unnecessary social and political confusion. The current political rhetoric promotes political order in which women are not defined as political agents.

CONCLUSION The intertext of political texts shows that the main characteristic of contemporary political subjectivity in Latvia is its ability to produce and maintain social,

especially ethnic and gender based differences. First this appears in the ways that political parties use traditional familial gender roles in their political narratives. Their rhetoric grants political power to ‘‘heads of the family’’ or the new managers of small, family-type enterprises, mainly men. Next the current Latvian political subjectivity is engaged in defining and maintaining an externally bordered and internally hierarchical community, where national manhood is prioritized over all other identities. Finally, the political subjectivity aims to create an ordered society ruled by class, ethnic, and gender differences. The prevalence of the themes of the family, borders, and order in the political rhetoric is shaped by the conflicting, although combined tendencies of Latvian politics and society such as increasing national isolation, a struggle against the Soviet legacies, and ambitions of integration into European and global cultural, political, social, and economic networks. As a result, political subjectivity in contemporary Latvia is nationalist and masculinized. Masculinity itself is politicized and legitimized as a basis of one’s political agency. Such a situation is not, however, unique to Latvia. Throughout the Eastern European region the first freely elected parliaments experienced a dramatic decrease in women members. Research also shows that, for example, political parties in Hungary are actually viewed as instruments allowing men to regain social prestige and power position that have been undermined by the Communist state patriarchy (Gal, 1997). Women and femininity are either completely depoliticized or solely linked to the maternal role. As pointed out by Watson (1997), Eastern European women’s social identity has almost completely lost its political meaning. This affects women’s political opportunities and their attitudes toward politics. For example, a survey done in 2001 showed that 63.9% of women and 54.5% of men thought that men are better political decision-makers. Similarly, 64.8% of women and 54.8% of men were convinced that men are better suited to be highly positioned officials (SKDS, 2001: 200 – 201). Such perceptions are not coincidental. I suggest that the current political rhetoric constructs masculinized political subjects who adopt policies favoring men’s political and economic participation. Moreover, the process of internal political stratification and social differentiation takes place not in spite of, but together with Latvia’s increasing integration into global homogenizing systems. However, I do not intend to de-value the recent political developments in Latvia; I do not advocate halting international integration; and like Havelkova (1997), I do not consider the notion of civil and democratic

Gendered political subjectivity in post soviet Latvia

society in need of reconsideration. By pointing out the failures, I maintain my hope of the possibility of strong and expanded democracy in Latvia and the Eastern European region in general. ENDNOTE 1. All translations of the quoted Latvian texts are mine (I.Z.).

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