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Acknowledgements
This research is undertaken as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative University of Latvia European Social Fund project “Development Strategies and Changing Cultural Spaces of Latvia’s Rural Residents” (University of Latvia/European Social Fund Project: 2009/0222/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/09/APIA/VIAA/087).
Notes
1 For the reference to bird-watching circles see Putnam (Citation1994, 91); the elaboration on how this may work to create civic habits is the author’s own.
2 This is his main argument throughout the entire study (Putnam Citation1994, 157).
3 Author’s interview in Talsi district, 28 July 2011.
4 Personal experience of author with an organization she is a member of; also media reports. One NGO was fined 500 lats by the Tax inspector because their financial accountant had worked as a volunteer without pay. After protests regulations were adjusted to state that even accountants could be NGO volunteers.
5 Author’s interview in Talsi district, 28 July 2011.
6 Latvia had 630 credit unions in 1936, today there are 35. See Upena (Citation2010, 8).
7 Author’s interview in Jaunpiebalga district, 18 June 2010.
8 Latvia prides itself on its beautiful mittens, which are knitted according to traditional designs. At the time of the 2006 NATO summit in Riga groups of Latvian country women knitted several thousand pairs of these mittens to be presented as a welcoming gift to the summit participants. The knitting marathon turned out to be a major communal event in many rural communities. See Vaivare and Meiere (Citation2007).
9 Author’s interview in Talsi district, 26 July 2011.
10 Author’s interview in Jaunpiebalga district, 15 June 2010.
11 Author’s interview with an active member of the movement, 12 December 2010.
12 Author’s interview with leaders of the Latvia Rural Forum, 31 May 2010.
13 The organization website, http://www.elard.eu/elard/national-leader-networks/en_GB/national-latvian-rural-forum, lists the following: Aims & Objectives: Promote sustainable development of Latvian rural territories; Strengthening civil society in rural territories, promoting local initiatives and cooperation; Representing interests of rural population in national and international level; Cooperate with government, municipalities, NGOs, business persons and other institutions.
14 I focus on this issue in another part of the broader research project. See Kārkliņa (Citation2012a).
15 Various media reports, for example, Latvijas Avīze (2011) 13 October. For an interview with Uldis Krievāns, one of the most active organizers of rural protests in 2009, see Tomsone (Citation2010).
16 Author’s interview in Jaunpiebalga district, 17 June 2010.
17 Author’s interview in Jaunpiebalga district, 16 June 2010.
18 Author’s interview in Talsi county, 26 July 2011; also local media reports.
19 I thank Dace Dzenovska for this information.
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Rasma Kārkliņa
Rasma Kārkliņa (aka Karklins) is professor emerita of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and currently participates in an interdisciplinary research project at the University of Latvia. Professor Kārkliņa has published widely on comparative political corruption, transitions to democracy, civil society, and ethnopolitics. Her most recent book, The System Made Me Do It: Corruption in Post-Communist Societies (M.E. Sharpe, 2005), has been translated into Latvian, Russian, Polish, Serbian, and Bulgarian.