About 25% of Latvians believe in a secret world government, in a “Jewish conspiracy”, in the “hand of Brussels” and in “US direction”. These are the findings of a recent study “Voices of Central and Eastern Europe. Perceptions of Democracy and Governance in 10 EU Countries” conducted by the non-governmental organization GLOBSEC, writes Lsm.lv.
The research findings are based on surveys conducted in March 2020 in 10 EU countries – Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. There were from 1,000 to 1,047 respondents in each state, and the sample (gender, age, education level, place of residence, and so on) reflects the structure of the population as a whole.
It turned out that Lithuanians are the least likely to believe in conspiracy theories in Eastern Europe – 17%. Latvians are third (25%) in this indicator, Estonians are fourth (28%). Slovakia is at the other extreme (56%). 43% of Latvians, 42% of Lithuanians and 37% of Estonians agree that the world is ruled by a secret group that wants to impose totalitarian rule. In Austria the figure is 22%, and in Slovakia – 60%. On average, 41% of Eastern Europeans believe in a “secret government”.
The fact that Jews have a lot of power and secretly control all governments and departments is believed most of all in Slovakia (51%) and Hungary (49%). In Latvia this indicator is 29%: higher than in Estonia (16%), but lower than in Lithuania (34%). At the same time, 35% of Lithuanians and 25% of Estonians indicated that they do not have a clear opinion about whether this theory has a right to life. In Estonia, 59% of respondents do not believe in the “Jewish conspiracy”.
Ten percent of Lithuanians and 21% of Latvians agree that the movement to secede these republics from the USSR in the 1980s and early 1990s was orchestrated by the United States in order to strengthen its dominance in the region. At the same time, 39% of Lithuanians and 27% of Latvians do not know whether to agree with this statement.
On average, 52% of Eastern Europeans believe that Brussels is dictating to their country what to do – and it cannot be influenced. Every seventh (13%) Lithuanian and every fourth (26%) Latvians believe that the Baltic countries are under NATO occupation. Almost a third (30%) of Estonians believe that the only purpose of NATO’s presence in the country is to provoke and irritate Russia.
22% of Latvians, the same number of Estonians and 12% of Lithuanians, agreed with the statement “in my country there was no Soviet occupation, it became part of the USSR voluntarily and legally”.
In addition, 26% of Latvians believe that there is a network of Western historians who organized a conspiracy against Russia in order to falsify and distort history – and thus devalue the role of Russia (USSR) in the destruction of Nazism.
Every second Latvian respondent believes that the situation in the country does not change with the change of government. Four out of five are convinced that the oligarchs and financial groups in the country are very influential. Only 43% were in favor of “democracy” as a method of government.