This article tests theories of group threat, competition, contact, and shared pain. The author argues that economic downturns undermine rather than increase support for prejudice. The absolute pain of a recession is felt by all groups in society, even if the relative costs are often distributed unevenly across groups. While nationalists can scapegoat minorities for economic woes, competing elites have incentives to adopt economic frames that focus on individual suffering. Empirical support comes from a subnational research design that includes quantitative data from Latvia’s 565 localities and from a qualitative analysis of the framing techniques adopted by Latvian political parties.
AchenChristopherShivelyW. Phillips. 1995. Cross-level inference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
AlesinaAlbertoGlaeserEdward. 2004. Fighting poverty in the United States and Europe: A world of difference. New York: Oxford University Press.
3.
AllportGordon. 1954. The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
4.
ArnicānsMatīss. 2009. Darbu saraksts taps vēlāk. Diena (Riga), July1.
5.
BloomStephen. 2004. Economic reform and ethnic cooperation in post-Soviet Latvia and Ukraine. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles.
6.
BlumerHerbert. 1958. Race prejudice as a source of group position. Pacific Sociological Review1:3-7.
7.
BNS. 2009. Šlesers tandēmā ar Ušakovu cer iegūt vairākumu arī nākamajā Saeimā. July21.
8.
BrantonRegina. 2007. Latino attitudes toward various areas of public policy. Political Research Quarterly60:293-303.
9.
BraumoellerBear. 2004. Hypothesis testing and multiplicative interaction terms. International Organization58: 807-20.
10.
BrubakerRogers. 2004. Ethnicity without groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
BrubakerRogersFeischmidtMargitFoxJonGranceaLiana. 2006. Nationalist politics and everyday ethnicity in a Transylvanian town. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12.
Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia. 1998. Towns and civil parishes in the administrative districts of Latvia. Riga: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia.
13.
ConnorWalker. 1984. The national question in Marxist-Leninist theory and strategy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
14.
CoxGary. 1997. Making votes count. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15.
Demogrāfija 2007. 2007. Riga, Latvia: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia.
16.
DewanShaila. 2009. A racial divide is bridged by recession. New York Times, November17.
17.
DreifeldsJuris. 1996. Latvia in transition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18.
DreijereVita. 2008. Eksperti: Tēvzemiešu klipā atražoti stereotipi par krieviem. Diena (Riga), December10.
19.
FishM. Steven. 2001. The dynamics of democratic erosion. In Postcommunism and the theory of democracy, ed. Richard AndersonM.FishStevenHansonStephen E.RoederPhilip G., 54-95. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
20.
ForbesH. D.1997. Ethnic conflict: Commerce, culture, and the contact hypothesis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
21.
FossettMarkKiecoltK. Jill. 1989. The relative size of minority populations and white racial attitudes. Social Science Quarterly70:820-35.
22.
FreemanGary. 1979. Immigrant labor and racial conflict in industrial societies: The French and British experience 1945–1975. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
23.
GagnonV. P.2004. The myth of ethnic war: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
24.
GaspardFrançoiseServan-SchreiberClaude. 1985. La fin des immigrés. Paris: Seuil.
25.
GellnerErnest. 1964. Thought and change. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
26.
GlaserJames. 1994. Back to the black belt: Racial environment and white racial attitudes in the south. Journal of Politics56:21-41.
27.
GolderMatt. 2003. Electoral institutions, unemployment and extreme right parties: A correction. British Journal of Political Science33:525-34.
28.
GreskovitsBéla. 1998. The political economy of protest and patience: East European and Latin American transformations compared. Budapest: Central European University Press.
29.
HaleHenry. 2008. The foundations of ethnic politics: Separatism of states and nations in Eurasia and the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
30.
JackmanRobertVolpertKarin. 1996. Conditions favouring parties of the extreme right. British Journal of Political Science26:501-21.
31.
KalnieteSandra. 2000. Es lauzu, tu lauzi, mēs lauzām, viņi lūza. Riga, Latvia: Jumava.
32.
KarklinsRasma. 1986. Ethnic relations in the USSR: The perspective from below. Boston: Allen and Unwin.
33.
KeyV. O.Jr. 1949. Southern politics in state and nation. New York: Knopf.
34.
KingGary. 1997. A solution to the ecological inference problem: Reconstructing individual behavior from aggregate data. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
35.
KunovichRobertHodsonRandy. 2002. Ethnic diversity, segregation, and inequality: A structural model of ethnic prejudice in Bosnia and Croatia. Sociological Quarterly43:185-212.
36.
Latvijas Rajoni un Lielākās Pilsētas. 1998. Riga, Latvia: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia.
37.
Latvijas Republikas 6. Saeimas vēlēšanas. 1996. Riga, Latvia: Central Election Commission.
38.
Latvijas Republikas 7. Saeimas vēlēšanas. 1999. Riga, Latvia: Central Election Commission.
39.
LočmeleNellijaMelnaceBaiba. 1998. Apstiprināta tautas nobalsošanas zīme. Diena (Riga), September9, 3.
40.
MansfieldEdwardSnyderJack. 2005. Electing to fight: Why emerging democracies go to war. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
41.
MartinTerry. 2001. The affirmative action empire: Nations and nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
42.
McLarenLauren. 2003. Anti-immigrant prejudice in Europe: Contact, threat perception, and preferences for the exclusion of migrants. Social Forces81:909-36.
43.
MežsIlmārs. 1993. Latvieši Latvijā. Riga: University of Latvia.
44.
MotylAlexander. 1993. Dilemmas of independence: Ukraine after totalitarianism. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press.
45.
OffeClaus. 1991. Capitalism by democratic design? Democratic theory facing the triple transition in east central Europe. Social Research58:865-92.
46.
OlzakSusan. 1992. The dynamics of ethnic competition and conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
47.
OrensteinMitchellBloomStephenLindstromNicole. 2008. A fourth dimension of transition. In Transnational actors in central and east European transitions, ed. OrensteinMitchellBloomStephenLindstromNicole, 1-18. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press.
48.
PrzeworskiAdam. 1991. Democracy and the market: Political and economic reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
49.
PrzeworskiAdamTeuneHenry. 1970. The logic of comparative social inquiry. New York: John Wiley.
50.
QuillianLincoln. 1995. Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: Population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice in Europe. American Sociological Review60:586-611.
51.
QuillianLincoln. 1996. Group threat and regional change in attitudes toward African-Americans. American Sociological Review102:816-60.
52.
SafireWilliam. 2008. The Bradley effect. New York Times Magazine, September28.
53.
SaltmarshMatthew. 2010. Jobless rate in euro zone is in double digits. New York Times, January2.
54.
SchisselBernardWannerRichardFrideresJames. 1989. Social and economic context and attitudes toward immigrants in Canadian cities. International Migration Review23:289-308.
55.
SchumpeterJoseph. 1950. Capitalism, socialism, and democracy. New York: Harper.
56.
SearsDavidKinderDonald. 1985. Whites’ opposition to busing: On conceptualizing and operationalizing group conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology48:1141-47.
57.
SlogaGuntaArnicānsMatīss. 2009. Šlesers un Ušakovs šķērso etniskās robežas. Diena (Riga), July8.
58.
SnidermanPaulCrosbyGretchenHowellWilliam. 2000. The politics of race. In Racialized politics: The debate about racism in America, ed. SearsDavidSidaniusJimBoboLawrence, 236-79. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
59.
SnyderJackBallentineKaren. 1996. Nationalism and the marketplace of ideas. International Security21 (2): 5-40.
60.
SnyderRichard. 2001. Scaling down: The subnational comparative method. Studies in Comparative International Development36:93-110.
61.
ŠupstikaLaura. 2009. TB/LNNK piespriež 500 latu sodu par neliekumīgu priekšvēlēšanu reklāmu. Diena (Riga), July20.
62.
TaylorMarylee. 1998. How white attitudes vary with the racial composition of local populations: Numbers count. American Sociological Review63:512-35.
63.
TourangeauRogerRipsLanceRasinskiKenneth. 2000. The psychology of survey response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
64.
UrbanovičsJānis. 1998. Mēs visi sēžam vienā laivā. Novadnieks (Preiļi), September24.
65.
VanagsEdvīns. 2004. Dažādā Latvija. Riga, Latvia: Latvijas Statistikas Institūts.
66.
Van EveraStephen. 1994. Hypotheses on nationalism and war. International Security18 (4): 5-39.
67.
WilliamsRobin. 1947. The reduction of intergroup tensions. Social Science Research Council Bulletin No. 57. New York: Social Science Research Council.
