Our next guest of speaker series of the Institute for Political Science is Cynthia Horne (Western Washington University) with the presentation entitled:

Public Attitudes Toward On-Going Transitional Justice in Latvia: Sometimes more isn’t better

This project explores public support for Latvia’s continued use of citizenship requirements and language policies as forms of transitional justice to redress vestiges of the Soviet past. On-going for more than 30 years and amplified following Russia’s war in Ukraine, this paper presents an original 1,000 person survey of Latvian residents’ attitudes toward transitional justice conducted in June 2023. The survey was timed to tap into public opinions toward measures targeting remnants of the Russian/Soviet past at a moment of geopolitical security concerns heightened by Russia’s war in Ukraine. What can Latvia’s elongated use of measures to redress the past tell us about the temporal parameters for transitional justice?  First, despite connections made by political parties that Latvia faced not only threats from Russia but potential domestic threats from ethnic Russians in Latvia, support for on-going transitional justice remained moderate. Second, respondents overwhelmingly thought the government should focus more on solving current problems than on dealing with the consequences of the injustices of the USSR period. Third, a high level of ethnic polarization raised concerns about the potential for measures to have negative effects, possibly fomenting more ethnic polarization and undermining governance. Finally, the youngest groups with no lived experience under communism were the most supportive of measures to punish the past, highlighting unexpected demographic trends among these young voters. The study speaks to the on-going use of transitional justice in other post-communist states.