=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2865/short3
|storemode=property
|title=Discourse on Safety/Security in the Parliamentary Corpus of Latvian Saeima
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2865/short3.pdf
|volume=Vol-2865
|authors=Ilva Skulte,Normunds Kozlovs
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/dhn/SkulteK20
}}
==Discourse on Safety/Security in the Parliamentary Corpus of Latvian Saeima==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2865/short3.pdf
Discourse on Safety/Security in the Parliamentary
Corpus of Latvian Saeima
Ilva Skulte[0000-0002-4589-6600] and Normunds Kozlovs
Riga Stradins University, Faculty of Communication, Dzirciema 16, LV-1007, Riga, Latvia
ilva.skulte@rsu.lv
normunds.kozlovs@rsu.lv
Abstract. The discourse on (individual and public) safety and (social) security in
the political communication has an impact on community feelings through the
ideas of risk and emergency. Indeed, the many aspects of insecurity / un-safety
make this to be elaborated in speeches as a rather manifold and complex concept.
How is this conceptual nexus used and perceived in the speeches of MP’s of Lat-
vian parliament, and what impact it may have had on political discourse in gen-
eral and construction of identities and power relations between political elites and
the people in this discourse? These are the main issues addressed in this research
that combines critical discourse analysis and corpus analysis tool created for Cor-
pus of Debates in Latvian parliament - Saeima (1993 – 2017) (http://saeima.kor-
puss.lv/)). Findings show that the discourse on safety and security is provided by
Latvian MP’s mainly from protectionist point of view. The main stream of dis-
course indicate the uses of the meaning of ‘security’ or “the state of being free
from danger or threat”; this is why it is sometimes referred to as taken for granted
or the term is often used in Saeima debates in both administrative and populist
contexts.
Keywords: Parliamentary Discourse, Safety, Security, Ideology, Governmen-
tality.
1 Introduction
The world wide comparative research on value systems in change shows that the value
of security (understood as existential security) is gradually losing its importance in the
context of developing economic well-being, prosperity and post- materialist values (In-
glehart, 2008). However, only in the number of most developed Western societies this
change was really completed in terms of percentage of population expressing post-ma-
terialist values surpassing the percentage of people expressing materialist values. In the
last decade a cultural backlash is taking place in form of waves of success of political
populism that often implies the rhetoric of danger to raise awareness of social security
and individual and public safety [Norris, Inglehart, 2019]. It is nevertheless clear that
physical, emotional and economic security as the state of being free of risk is still per-
ceived as exclusively important in many parts of the world. It is especially true also for
Latvian society [Rungule, Seņkāne, 2018] where democracy was (re)introduced along
Copyright © 2021 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under
Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
108
with consolidating of its national identity based on traditionalist conservative ideas.
[Kruk, 2018] Being one of the Post-soviet societies Latvia re-gained independence in
the year 1991 and joined EU in 2004, introducing neoliberalism and having reached
certain level of well-fare (rising its GDP form 4.5 in 1993 to 35,66 in 2008 and 34.31
billion US dollars last year [Trading Economics, 2020] but at the same time scholars
discuss anomia in psychological description of Latvian society. [Ļevina, Mārtinsone,
2018].
In this context we wanted to stress the perplexity and complexity of the concept and
/ or semantic field in question in order to find out how it is used in the given context to
have an advantage in discussions in Latvian parliament – Saeima – or to follow partic-
ular (situative) political goals. So, the main aim of the research was to study critically
the discourse of parliamentary debates to find out how exactly the notion(s) of
safety/security were used in parliamentary debates from the first independent Saeima
after re-gaining independence in 1993 to the year 2017, who (individual MP’s, political
parties, gender etc. characteristics) are using those notions more extensively and what
goals and purposes were tried to reach with mentioning of safety / security. The main
question here was – what is the meaning(s) MP’s include into those notions in discourse
of debates, and how this discourse may have influenced the conceptualization of na-
tional identity?
2 Theoretical Aspects of Safety/Security Discourse in
Parliament
2.1. Semantic Field of Safety/Security
The first challenge we encountered while designing research model for this paper was
the fact that the word “drošība” in Latvian can be translated into English as two units
of lexicon, respectively “security” and “safety”. The word “drošība” is listed with three
meanings in the on-line Dictionary of Contemporary Latvian Language, respectively,
“condition of not being in threat, endangered; 2. The complex of characteristics or
measures ensuring an event or process without mistakes, accidents, traumatism, ele-
ment of such an insurance, 3. insurance, warrant. [Zuicena & Roze]. Latvian Academic
Dictionary of Terminology (an online terminology source combing data from several
dictionaries) links Latvian “drošība” to lexemes with similar meanings in English, Rus-
sian, German and French. It allows understanding of how semantic fields are con-
structed in languages that through translations and everyday cross-linguistic usage
might have influenced understanding and usage of the concept in Latvian.
Compering semantic fields in all respective languages can see that even if the mean-
ings in all languages are slightly differing ranging from ‘being sure’ to ‘being un-
touched”, however, core concept is that of not endangered, protected against risks
caused by human activity or processes enacted by some other source. Research in the
field of safety studies shows that safety can be defined in relation to risk and full or
acceptable partly absence of unwanted events. [Hansson, 2012; Aven, 2014] Zedner
109
noticed a similar inconsistency of the notion “security” as well when observing four
paradoxes connected to the strengthening security – presuming persistence of crime,
expansion of the penal state, increase of anxiety and the social exclusion. [Zedner,
2003] Both security and safety can be defined as antonyms of risk (complementary (as
absence of potential of unwanted event) and contrary (as low potential of unwanted
event)) [Boholm, 2017] Accordingly, there are two terms in English meaning respec-
tively the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury
(safety), and the quality or state of being free from danger or threat (security) whereas
1) both can be treated also in the instrumental sense (instrument, document, measures,
device), 2) term “security” covers a broader concept 2.1) including in its main meaning
besides safety as a freedom from danger other sub-meanings and 2.2) being used as
synonym of “surety” and “protection” [Merriam-Webster On-line].
Both are connected to the same semantic field that is represented by the one and the
same word “drošība” in Latvian. Like in other languages this word is derivative from
adjective “drošs” meaning brave, safe with help of suffix –ība, a unit usually used
in Latvian to build nouns with abstract meaning.
2.2. Uses of safety/security discourse in parliament.
Links and networks of semantic fields are structuring the discourse defining reality,
structured perceptions of which are influencing back the way reality is perceived. In
fact, discourse works in three dimensions – language use, communication of beliefs
and social interaction [van Dijk, 1997]. Parallel to this, in the act of communication
the identities are formed [De Fina, 2012], understood and legitimized. Parliamentary
dis-course is a form of discourse, yet, very important form that strongly influences
identi-ties and beliefs of the society because this is the site were power relations are
legiti-mized and identities of social groups set up and defined along with their needs
and aims in the social interaction outside parliament – in many specific genres of
speaking MP’s are driving the motivation of “the audience to act in a certain way with
regard to real-life issues” [Ilie, 2015, 7]. The discourse of parliamentary debates is
therefore an ex-cellent source of data to understand what views and beliefs and what
models of actions are projected to the experience of social reality where the identity
is constructed in everyday intercourse. As a part of political discourse that is
discussed most through the prism of ideological positions, value systems and
beliefs [van Dijk, 2004; Wodak, 1987; Wodak, 2013], even if it is sometimes
difficult to identify ideologies in connec-tion woth particular parties in the times of
populism [Auers, Kasekamp, 2013, 339].
In the late 1970ies Michel Foucault elaborated the notion of governmentality in his
work on relationships between state power, society and subject in liberal democracies
of the time. He described this as the art of governance, form or reflection of
government by government (reflective governance) that is a positive power implying
voluntary sub-jection of subjects to governance, but, nevertheless, is based in
biopolitical.thinking. [Foucault 2008]. Discourse here serves as both instrument of
reflection and instrument of governing, as it connects mental aspects (structures of
cognition), with practical im-pact, effects of communication. We used Foucauldian
approach to understand the role
110
of the discourse on safety/security that projects the idea of future danger and therefore
legitimizes power relations between protected and protectors. So it provides a form of
disciplinary and bio-political control and is a form of governmentality. [Foucault, 2008;
Henriqson, 2014; Evans 2010]. As Giorgio Agamben puts it, this view actually brings
under question categories used for understanding the political communication in terms
of ideology and values, and the meaning of reality it refers to: “ Only within a biopolit-
ical horizon will it be possible to decide whether the categories whose opposition
founded modern politics (right/left, private/public, absolutism/democracy, etc.) – and
which have been steadily dissolving, to the point of entering today into a real zone of
indistinction – will have to be abandoned or will, instead, eventually regain the meaning
they lost in that very horizon”. [Agamben, 1998, 10] Semantically connected to the
concept of risk (endangering well-being and life), discourse of safety/security is an in-
strument of application of the biopolitical horizon in the politics.
3 Methodology
According to these theoretical assumptions we employed for our study two methods
resulting in both quantitative and qualitative data. Critical discourse analysis (CDA)
(Fairclough, 1993, 2001, 2003; Kress, 1990; van Dijk, 1997; 2003; Wodak, 2001, 2009)
was employed to find out how using the term in question in a specific context the con-
ceptual understanding of the social and political situation was developed but also se-
mantic structures build and strategically enacted to establish larger power relations al-
lowing governance and identity building. Critical discourse analysis is increasingly
used for the analysis of hidden legitimization and naturalization of power relations and
social inequalities in political communication (Sengul, 2019). Around this aim various
research practices are mobilized in what is in fact wide interdisciplinary field of diverse
approaches with different theoretical and methodological backgrounds (Fairclough,
Mulderrig, & Wodak, 2011, 357). In this study we combined two approaches - Dialec-
tical-Relational model by Fairclough (Fairclough, 1993), especially, 2 nd (critique of the
neoliberal discourse) and 3rd (deliberative) phase in the development of his approach
(Fairclough, 2017, 14) based on M. Foucault’s and M. Halliday’s ideas (Sengul, 2019)
and van Dijk’s Socio- Cognitive model (van Dijk, 2001, 2003, 2011). In other words,
for understanding and describing of conceptualization of existing social reality as “in
danger” or “facing risks” by talks in parliament (allowing an adequate fixing of roles
between power and people), we applied the normative (value based), circumstantial,
explanatory and action seeking (change oriented) (Fairclough, 2017) ways of reason-
ing.
Corpus analysis was used to have a quantitative overview on speakers, their groups
and intensity of safety/ security discourse and to access longer fragments of texts of
debates for qualitative research. For this purpose we were working with corpus analysis
tool developed by researchers from Riga Stradins university and Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory of the University of Latvia for The Corpus of Debates in Latvian Saeima
111
[Auziņa, Darģis, Kruks, Rābante-Buša, Skulte, 2015). The parliamentary corpus of Lat-
vian Saeima consists of the transcriptions of speeches from the 5 th Saeima and gives an
opportunity to use full text stem search, order the data, filter by period, search for spe-
cific speakers as well as in-depth searching and limitation of criteria (Darģis et.al,
2016). The analytical tool is public access for multidisciplinary research covering data
from first Saeima after re-gaining independence in 1993 to 12th Saeima that ended in
2017. We used here the specially created website that makes it easy to work with data
(http://saeima.korpuss.lv/). This analysis was aimed on the statistical overview of con-
texts, situations and producers of the discourse on safety/security in Saeima. Our re-
search interest here was to find out what political agenda and ideological background
or individual style of speakers could be seen as drivers for usage of safety/security
term(s), what are proportional relations between respective backgrounds and styles,
how did this possibly change over the time in scope. We used the research possibilities
provided by the tool to analyze gender variety, political and ideological spectrum (party
belonging of speakers, representation of government or other group of speakers, coded
as Group, see Table 1), taking in account variables such as time the speech was pro-
duced, number of fragments produced and mentioning safety/security (Number of
cases, see Table 1), size of the group (e.g. political party of election block, government
ministers or other, Size of the group, see Table 1), and percentages from all results
(number against the number of results found) and from the total of category (number
versus the number that would be obtained in this category by searching without criteria)
calculated by the software (see Table 1). The results obtained were used further to un-
derstand the context of discourse production in the qualitative part of the research. The
website provides also access to longer pieces of text of the parliamentary debates that
was used for discourse analysis.
4 Findings
4.1. Quantitative approach: corpus analysis data.
Lemma “drošīb*” (meaning ‘security/safety’) appears in 3287 fragments. To avoid en-
tries with usage of the word in appellations, (e.g. titles of laws and names of institutions)
the nominative singular form was used for searching. This search produced 340 frag-
ments making 0.11% of all entries. The safety/security talk 1 is maintained mostly by
male MP’s, however, female MP’s traditionally build only under 20 from hundred seats
in Latvian Parliament (less, respectively 8 and 14 in the Saeimas form 1990ies, more –
31 – in present parliament, since 2018) [CSB, 2019]. This makes the difference between
those who are referring to security/safety in both groups practically insignificant (re-
spectively 12% and 10% from category total).
1 Here and further: the term “safety/security talk” is used to refer to all the expressions of MP’s
mentioning the term “drošība”.
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Table 1. Top groups of speakers, addressing safety/security in Saeima discourse.
Group Number Size of % from all % from the total
of cases group results of category
MP’s / Latvian Way /Latvijas Ceļš 26 23010 7,65 0,11
MP’s/ Social Democratic Workers’ 19 2844 5,59 0,67
Party of Latvia / Latvijas
Sociāldemokrātiskā Strādnieku
partija (LSDSP)
MP’s /Green and Farmers’ Union 18 8958 5,29 0,21
/Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība (ZZS)
MP’s / For Fatherland and 17 11927 5 0,14
Freedom/ Latvian National
Independence Movement
/Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/Latvijas
Nacionālās Neatkarības Kustība /
(TB/LNNK)
MP’s Unity / Vienotība 17 12554 5 0,14
MP’s/ All For Latvia /For 15 4711 4,41 0,32
Fatherland and Freedom/ Latvian
National Independence Movement
Visu Latvijai/Tēvzemei un
Brīvībai/Latvijas Nacionālās
neatkarības Kustība
(VL/TB/LNNK)
MP’s / Latvian Farmers Union/ 14 3263 4,12 0,43
Latvijas Zemnieku Savienība
MP’s/ Latvian Association of 13 744 3,82 1,75
Regions / Latvijas Reģionu
apvienība
MP’s/ For Human Rights in Unified 13 2689 3,89 0,48
Latvia/ Par Cilvēktiesībām Vienotā
Latvijā (PCTVL)
MP’s / Latvian National 12 1828 3,63 0,66
Independence Movement, Latvijas
Nacionālās neatkarības kustība
(LNNK)
MP’s/ Peoples Party / Tautas partija 12 22686 3,53 0,05
Ministers of Finance 12 401 3,53 2,99
Prime Ministers 12 158 3,53 7.59
MP’s/ Harmony Centre 9 3767 2.94 0,27
Saeima officials 9 105391 2,65 0,01
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If we look at the groups of speakers that are more often speaking of the concept(s) of
safety/security, in the top of parties whose representatives have used the term “drošība”
in their utterances more than others (see Table 1), it is interesting that leading are parties
that were more active in the political life of Latvia in the end of 1990ies, some of them
like Green and Farmers Union (Zaļo un Zemnieku Savienība, ZZS or Latvian National
Independence Movement (Latvijas Nacionālās neatkarības kustība (LNNK) still active
today. In the case of parties included into several parliaments or / and whose members
are active speakers in debates we can say that they have not neglected the safety/secu-
rity. Right centrist Latvijas Ceļš (Way of Latvia, LC), for example, was one of the
leading parties in several Saeimas during 1990ies. If we look at the number of mention-
ing of safety/security during all period of time covered by corpus, this party leads with
26 times where some of its MP’s used the term. However, if we calculate a coefficient
of usage against all items of corpus from this category (all utterances by MP’s of Lat-
vijas Ceļš) the percentage is relatively small – only 0,11%. Vienotība (Unity) is another
right centrist party that emerged in the middle of 2000nds that also was one of the dom-
inant parties in parliament and part of the government. Here we see the same situation
relatively high number of mentioning of the term is connected to number and activity
of MP’s from the party in all Saeimas it entered, but it gives only moderate coefficient,
so that we can speak of relatively moderate use of the term by the MP’s of this party
(17 times, 0,14%). There is no surprise that such political forces as the Union of Farm-
ers and Green (ZZS) are relatively solid in the top 3 of the list (see Table 1), and this
seems to be obvious that the MP’s from the blocs with the strongly nationalist orienta-
tion must support the security discourse (the parties in different periods forming differ-
ent election blocs of this group include MP’s from mainly three parties - For Fatherland
and Freedom (Tēvzemei un Brīvībai, TB), Latvian National Independence Movement
(Latvijas Nacionālās neatkarības kustība (LNNK)) and All for Latvia (Visu Latvijai,
VL))) – usage of security terms is important part of their political rhetoric. If we look
at the coefficient of the usage of the safety/ security term in the context of all speeches
by their MP’s, we see that for LNNK in the earlier Saeimas (until 1997) and for the
National Union (VL/TB/LNNK) this percentage is higher than for unified TB/LNNK
in the period of time from 1997 – 2010 (respectively , 0.66%, 0,32% and 0,14%, see
Table 1).
However, notable fact is that the Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party
(LSDSP) shortly represented in the Parliament, was a very active user of terms in ques-
tion. This party was represented with 14 seats only in 7 th Saeima (1998-2002) (except
1 disputable case in 10th Saeima [lsm, 2011]), but is second in the top of number of uses
of the term “drošība” in the debates (19 times that makes 0,64% of all speeches). It is
obvious that the new-coming parties that stay in opposition and often are not so stable
(do not have the stability and success in the long term context of Latvian politics) are
tended to use security/ safety talk more independent from the ideological position (how-
ever this description matches more often leftist parties in Latvian politics). This is, of
course explainable by the attention and emotion that the politicians succeed to raise
with mentioning of security/ safety in their speeches. Another example for such a strat-
egy is Latvian Association of Regions (Latvijas Reģionu Apvienība (LRA). However,
114
frequent use is often context – depending. Particular topic can raise the number of use
of the terms (more see in next section of this paper).
More significant difference, however, is seen in comparing with representatives of
the government speaking in Saeima. Most frequent users of the safety/security terms in
Latvian Saeima are Prime Ministers (7,59% from the category total) and Ministers of
Finance (2,99%, see Table 1). The most significant here is the usage of this term by
Valdis Dombrovskis, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for
An Economy that Works for People since 2019 and European Commissioner for
Trade since 2020, who was, Minister of Finance (2002–2004) and Prime Minister dur-
ing and after global economic crisis (2009–2013). He uses this term 9,62% from this
category in total. Second biggest user of the word “drošība” is Juris Viļums (Reform
Party, LRA, 3,97%), followed by Kārlis Krēsliņš (VL/TB/LNNK; 3,49%)
Comparing all convocations of Saeima after 1993 it is clear that the highest numbers
of mentioning ‘safety/security’ in the first parliament of re-gained independence (1993–
1995), whereas another increase in observable in the recent years (2014–2017), even if
it is statistically not significant (percentage of uses from all fragments of speeches rises
from 0,01% to 0,02%). Both periods of time are connected to the situation outside Lat-
via and perceived dangers from the side of Russia.
4.2. Qualitative approach: discourse analysis results
The qualitative part of the research was made by using the opportunity to obtain longer
parts of conversation context were the lemma “drošība” appeared in the parliamentary
discourse. We used this context to re-construct main semantic structures and represen-
tations as well as mental models (van Dijk, 1997) behind the discourse construction.
Dominant understanding of the word “drošība” by Latvian politicians of different
parties speaking in Saeima is connected to the idea of protection, i.e. the meaning of
the word is understood by MP's as 'protectness'. It is used in both senses differred by
English terms 'safety' and 'security'. The concept of security is discussed as a system, a
(major) plan for protection of citizens (and non-citizens) against (political, economical,
financial, ecological etc.) unstability and possible other dangers. This mental model
implies the description of possibly hostile environment, rarely has indication to a
particular evil force behind the danger but certainly underlines the role and
responsiblity of Saeima and each particular MP as agents in ensuring and guaranteeing
the stability and trust in secure living and development. This sense of the word,
however, is shadowed by the traumas of the Soviet past, when mentioning KGB (The
Commity of State Security), especially, in the earlier periods of Post-Soviet Saeima.
The reference to this traumatic experience of violence and breaking human rights is
used to enact the critical view on the instrumental understanding of security, if, for
example, discussing personel questions of people involved into security organs. In the
early 1990ies, the discourse of security is connected to the establishment of the new
system for national security as well organized, centrified and interconnected, so that the
instrumental understanding is unavoidable:
115
“Not internal or external security systems should be created in Latvia, but one Lat-
vian security system with two levels: with a peacetime strategy and appropriate forces
that would help to ensure it, namely, with security forces on duty, and the second level
– for a crisis situation.” (Odisejs Kostanda, LNNK, 1993)
There we see that the idea of security transforms into the concept of universal
machine of protection in particular context of Saeimas discussions. In general, security
in the political rhetoric is being seen as a(n automatic) part of the complex of wellbeing
of people of Latvia throughout all discussions in parliament. But the there is particular
and deep concern about protection of national independence as a historical heritage in
Latvian politics.
How to protect national independence? There are two main narratives that are
oscilating around Saeima debates.
The first, mainly used by National conservative MP’s constructing the image of
permanent danger from outside enemies (and even allies). It starts in form of ideological
differences that grow into possible physical damage:
“Then we can ask: isn't our security threatened by political correctness and self-
censorship? Because we know that in Germany, nothing was reported in the media for
four days - on the radio, on television or in the press. There are currently more than
700 applications in Cologne. Is the violation of human security, personal injury, rape,
beatings and robbery terrorism or not? [..] and perhaps then we will be clear about
what threatens the borders more - whether they are threatened, say, by some terrorists,
or whether they are threatened by Merkel and Mogerini, who invite a million guests.
As Landsbergis (the youngest) put it in Lithuania, nothing threatens the security of the
Baltic States, and therefore the security of Lithuania and, I think, the security of Latvia,
like German Chancellor Merkel's action - to invite a million guests to lunch and then
ask the neighbors to pay the bill.” (Aleksandrs Kiršteins, VL-TB/LNNK, 2016)
The second is keener on diplomatic and bureaucratic solutions and tells the story of
mighty allies (arguing the need to make allies), that allows sometimes take the security
for granted:
“As the security of Latvia as a NATO member is in safe hands, there is no reason to
worry”. (Iveta Grigale, ZZS, 2012)
It is interesting, however, how the discussion about the meaning of the word
“drošība” breaks out in Saeima in the context of Iraq war. The life and security is
brought in relation and foregrounded, but also neglected by strategic thinking of politi-
cians:
“Security does not mean more army participation in wars: “The more tanks and
submarines we have and the more we participate in wars, the safer our country will be!
If we go now and beat the Afghans or Muslims in Iraq or elsewhere, the safer we will
be! ” Security doctrines are also completely opposite, security presupposes both neu-
trality and non-violence, and so on. So that all their national patriotism should not be
turned into security!” (Arvīds Ulme, ZZS, 2003)
“The essence of the matter is not the word 'security' and it is not visible, as Mr
Dobelis said here, in NATO decisions. That is the essence of the matter. See what is
happening in Europe and around the world, we see that Europe is what it is today -
116
there is no consensus in Europe on many issues. And that is why a small country like
Latvia has a very difficult situation”. (Jānis Jurkāns, PCTVL, 2003)
There are, however, a completely other approach to the term “drošība” more con-
nected to safety concept in English. The social safety is approached in “small man’s”
perspective and looked at in particular aspects of normative life:
- financial/economic:
“There are a number of things involved, including the security of our savings, the
future of our savings at the second tier of the pension fund”. (Kārlis Leiškalns, People’s
Party, TP, 2008)
- health, employment or traffic:
“So there is no story here that the issue of road safety ... And let's face it ... Here is
a situation where the victim can decide whether to be in criminal proceedings or not.”
(Andrejs Judins, Vienotība, 2015)
The role of opposition is significant in pointing on the issues of inside country as-
pects of security and social safety. This opportunity to show their attentive treatment of
people is in part explaining why opposition MP’s from various parties are active users
of safety/security discourse:
“[..] the opposition, I think, has succeeded in the most important thing - attention is
paid by the society and the ruling coalition to the problems connected to security, be-
cause in pre-election campaigns a lot of parties wer making promisses to their voters
in municipalities, that the security [..] is the priority, which will be implemented in each
municipality and in the country as a whole”. (Pēteris Salkazanovs, LSDSP, 2001)
“Wake up! We live in the 21st century, national security has long been no longer just
a matter for the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior. National security
is also about education, health and culture.” (Mārtiņš Bondars, LRA, 2014)
So we see that the ideas about the changes of discourse establishing needed and
sought (criticism from value position) and orientation to solution (taking in account
broader field of reference) are actually present in the Saeima discourse itself even if it
is doubtful that the politician follows this road in a case of becoming a member of a
group building ruling position.
5 Discussion
The importance of the task of (re)construction of national identity and consolidation of
community after collapse of USSR is an important aspect that helps to understand po-
litical discourse in the country. From one side, the building of democracy in Latvia is
taken for granted, from another side, narrowed concept of national identity was intro-
duced that interacted with psychological feelings of instability and imagination of dan-
gers, risks and emergencies (in face of which people of Latvia must survive) followed
by what can be described as “pluralism anxiety”. [Kruk, 2018] This is why politicians,
especially, those from national and conservative parties often use a safety/ security
terms for argumentation of their political views that is appealing to their electorate, and
in political field concentrated around identity issues it gives a certain forehand in de-
bate. However, this strategy is considered to be successful per se, as the popularity of
117
security / safety discourse among politicians from new-coming parties in Saeima and
opposition MP’s show. According to this paradigm, frequency of the use increases in
the contexts where outside dangers (in particular, in regard to Russia) are perceived as
growing. It must be underlined that, ideological differences do not seem to play crucial
role in speaker decision to talk about or refer to safety / security. The reference to se-
curity/safety certainly is connected to the rather conservative and traditionalist dis-
course, but as this discourse in the process of construction of national identity is in part
brought in the fundament for building of democracy [Kruk, 2018], opposition MP’s
(from leftist and centrist parties) are even more active in the usage of the term. The
differences between political ideologies disappear also when MP’s are looking for the
precise meaning of the word in the context of responsibility in face of “bare lives” of
people (discussion in the context of Iraq war, 2003) In the same time there is certain
influence of the factor of personality (profession, position, a personal linguistic style)
of speakers that also plays role in usage of he term. Nevertheless, the biopolitical per-
spective of protection including conceptual deprivation of individual autonomy is dom-
inating.
So, term(s) in question is an important element of self-reflection of MP’s in Saeima
discourse – their main role is perceived as to safeguard people of Latvia, to ensure their
security (as norms and laws) and safety (based on idea on bodily and life risks). This
shows that the mental model involving understanding security/ safety can be seen as
part of the governmentality in Latvian politics. The fact that the government represent-
atives speaking in Saeima are very much using the term(s) is supporting this thesis.
6 Conclusions
Discourse on security/safety is permanent in Saeima’s debates during the years of in-
dependence. MP’s from wide spectrum of political parties use it, and it is a stable part
of discourse of national conservative parties. The opposition parties (both leftist and
centrist) are often mentioning security/safety to bring attention to specific issues of life
inside country.
The usage of the terms safety/security (and especially security) tends to be more
intense in two Saeimas analyzed – in the early 1990ies and after 2014, in the context of
unstable geopolitical situation and for gaining attention (however, there is no increase
in safety/security mentioning during global financial crisis). The issues of specific
forms and fields of safety are also making its way to discourse in Saeima.
The discourse on safety and security is provided from protectionist position by Lat-
vian MP’s. In Saeima, most frequent uses of the terms are in Prime Ministers and Min-
isters of Finance segments of the corpus. MP’s reflect they role as MP’s in regard to
security of people, government representatives often describe their achievements and
concerns in security/ safety terms, particular safety problems are discussed in the con-
text of respective laws and regulations.
The main stream of discourse indicate the uses of the meaning of ‘security’ or “the
state of being free from danger or threat”; this is why it is sometimes referred to as
118
taken for granted or the term is often used in corpus in both administrative (titles of
Laws) or populist contexts.
The meaning of “safety” appears, when the term is applied in some specific (profes-
sional) field where the risks or dangers appear, for example, traffic safety or work place
safety. The word in this meaning is more typical for the rhetoric of opposition MP’s.
The main conclusion here is that the discourse on safety/security is one of the ele-
ments characterizing the treatment of political elites of people of Latvia throughout the
history of Post-soviet period and thus encouraging building of power relations, but also
self-image and identity of Latvians in a certain way. We propose the interpretation that
this is done in mode described by Foucault ([1978/1979]2008) as governmentality –
even if the individualist perspective of “small people” is used to explain dangers and
risks, the MP’s in their speeches are tended to show that they – administratively and
symbolically – are taking over all the responsibility and active role, describing people
as protected and protectable – unable to protect themselves. The discourse shows many
cases where speakers are reflecting on their role of good and skillful governor by draw-
ing their arguments on emergency in the situation of constantly endangered by lack of
stability. The main and persistent danger for the country and its people is imagined in
the speeches as danger for the national independence coming from outside. This ele-
ment is permanent part of speeches of conservative MP’s, but it is nevertheless a valued
discursive tool for drawing attention to one’s political agenda and justify the biopoliti-
cal attitude.
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