Centre for European Politics, Security and Integration (CEPSI): Working Papers

Please send relevant submissions (of no more than 10,000 words) and/or enquiries about possible submissions to the Director of CEPSI Dr Seán Hanley; (e-mail: s.hanley@ssees.ucl.ac.uk)

• No. 1 December 2009
  'Parties and Populism'
  Allan Sikk

  Populism is a fashionable concept in comparative politics despite its ambiguity and new political parties have therefore often been dubbed populist. Many new parties in Central and Eastern Europe, however, have appeared in niches already occupied by old parties. This paper discusses three such cases in the Baltic states and argues that equating a critical style with populism risks both overstretching the concept and a serious normative bias in favour of the status quo.

• No. 2 March 2010
  'Sexuality and Nationality: Homophobic Discourse and the "National Threat" in Contemporary Latvia'
  Richard Mole

  Attitudes towards gays and lesbians in Latvia appear to be more intolerant than in almost all other EU member states. While the legacy of communist discourses on homosexuality and the impact of transition have played a role in shaping attitudes towards sexuality and sexual minorities, the paper argues that homosexuality has become particularly reviled in Latvia because it has been widely discursively constructed as a threat to the continued existence of the Latvian nation.

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