Baltic austerity politics relied on ethnic divide-and-conquer against Russian-linked opposition

Evidence

Finally, the politics of austerity that made cuts of this magnitude possible in the REBLLs cannot be replicated in the Southern periphery, nor should we wish that it could be. A rather divisive ethnic politics was the card played by the REBLL governments in some of the Baltic States to isolate and marginalize opposition to austerity. Where that card was not played, in Romania and Bulgaria, citizen protest was strong enough to slow down the austerity drive, and most recently, defeat it at the ballot box in Romania in December 2012. Again, to take the example of Latvia, the biggest political party opposed to austerity was the party associated with ethnic Russians, which made the divide-and-conquer politics needed to isolate them, given Latvia’s history with Russia, much easier. Playing nationalism to force budget cuts is not a policy that ends well, as we know from the experience of the 1930s. Perhaps then, once again, those old lessons from the 1930s stand up to scrutiny much better than the new lessons we are encouraged to learn from the REBLLs. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 611

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the interwar nationalism-and-austerity dynamics discussed earlier in the book and echoed in Mattei’s account. — connects to: Official nationalism redirected resentment onto imported ethnic minorities — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 382

Broader Connections

• Official nationalism redirected resentment onto imported ethnic minorities #expands (0.82) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 382