Baltic Journal of Political Science
Not a member yet
57 research outputs found
Sort by
RACE TO THE EUROZONE: WHY LATVIA JOINED BEFORE LITHUANIA
Get PDF Why did Latvia join the Eurozone in 2014, while Lithuania only acceded a year later? The two countries’ diverging experiences are surprising. Latvia suffered a more pronounced economic crisis from 2008 to 2010, which created greater euro adoption challenges in terms of meeting fiscal criteria. This article argues that, while the willingness to adopt the euro increased in both countries during and after the crisis, the will to seek euro adoption was stronger, clearer and more consistent in Latvia than in Lithuania. In examining this divergence, we argue that relying on aggregate economic costs and benefits, identity considerations, geopolitical considerations, societal support, and interest group preferences does not produce a satisfactory explanation of fluctuations in these countries’ willingness to adopt the euro. Instead, we propose that changes in this willingness can be traced to domestic political processes, such as the timing and results of elections and the magnitude of the economic crisis’s impact
INCREASING EUPOPULISM AS A MEGATREND IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE: FROM FACADE DEMOCRACIES TO VELVET DICTATORSHIPS
Get PDFBrexit and Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential election has launched a wave of discussions in the international media and political science literature on “authoritarian populism” and a “populist explosion.” Although this paper also reflects on this new wave of populism in the West, it concentrates on the connections between democracy’s decline and the so-called populist explosion in eastern central Europe (ECE) and closely investigates the Hungarian case within the context of ECE. This paper describes populism in ECE as a product of the transition from fading facade democracies to emerging velvet dictatorships. These velvet dictatorships rely on the soft power of media and communication rather on the hard power of state violence. Paradoxically, the ruling anti-elite populist parties have developed a system of populism from above, managed by the new politico-business elite. Populism (social and national) and Euroscepticism are the two most basic, and twin, terms used to describe these new (semi)authoritarian regimes. Populism and Euroscepticism are convertible; they are two sides of the same coin as they express the same divergence from the EU mainstream. Therefore, this paper introduces the term: Eupopulism
ANTIDIPLOMACY IN RUSSIA’S POLICIES REGARDING RUSSIAN-SPEAKERS IN THE BALTIC STATES
Get PDFThough Russia is a classic realist power, Russia, as its recent actions in Ukraine reveal, frequently prefers hard power to powers of attraction. In addition to traditional economic pressure and military policy, Russia also employs antidiplomatic tools to influence the Baltic states. Though Russia officially proclaims itself a democratic state, it has been developing a broad spectrum of antidiplomatic methods to legitimise Russia’s interests in post-Soviet spaces inhabited by large numbers of Russian-speakers. The clearest example of these methods appears in Russia’s use of international and regional organizations’ conferences to express and articulate its interests in protecting Russian diasporas—a phenomenon that first appeared in the Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy as part of his efforts to construct a negative image of the Baltic states, affect the Baltic states’ domestic policies, and subtly discredit their governments. Russia is positioning itself as the protector of a Russian diaspora wounded by the Baltic states’ anti-Russian policies
CORRIGENDA
Get PDFIn the previous issue of The Baltic Journal of Political Science (no. 4, 2015), Kamil Ławniczak, co-author of the article Poland’s International Relations Scholarly Community and its Distinguishing Features According to the 2014 TRIP Survey of International Relations Scholars, was misidentified as a “PhD student” in a footnote of page 94. Kamil Ławniczak possesses a PhD degree. We apologise to the author for this regrettable error
CONTEMPORARY POPULISM AND THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN WESTERN EUROPE
Get PDFGiven a threatening new wave of populism crossing Europe, this article examines the link between populism and crisis as a Gordian knot and explores the relationship between contemporary populism and the Great Recession in Western Europe by underscoring how the principal feature of this relationship is the perception of the European Union as a common enemy
DANISH SUPPORT FOR THE BALTIC STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 1988-1991: A HAWK-DOVE DOMESTIC CONFRONTATION
Get PDFWhen the Baltic States regained their independence in 1991, Denmark had been one of their very strongest supporters, at a time when many European countries looked at the Baltic aspirations with caution. It was one of the first examples of the new post-Cold War “activist” Danish foreign policy strategy. It was not, however, without difficulties. Thus, the article argues that the Danish Social Democratic centre-left and Conservative-Liberal centre-right disagreed on how to support the Balts in practice and at what price. The difference was rooted in a hawk-dove disagreement over détente and the Soviet Union. Government party colour, the article argues, is therefore likely to have been crucial for the Danish policy. Had the relatively hawkish centre-right government not been in power, it is very doubtful that we would have seen the kind of aggressive diplomatic support for Baltic independence as we saw from Denmark leading up to 1991
A REVIEW OF FAMILY DEMOGRAPHICS AND FAMILY POLICIES IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to review key aspects of family demographics and family policies in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland, and discuss similarities and differences between the five countries. After a brief historical sketch, some aspect s of family demographics – union formation and dissolution, fertility, and female employment rates – are presented. The main part of the article reviews family policies: family benefits, parental leaves, public child-care and financial support for home-based care. The article ends with a discussion of future challenges for Nordic family policies, and the potential for policy transfer. It is emphasised that the “Nordic model” of family policy is a model with at least four faces: the “low-key” Finnish version, the maximalist equality-and-choice-oriented Norwegian version, the Swedish dual earner/dual carer version and the universal employment-oriented Danish version
VOLATILITY AND WESTERN EUROPEAN PARTY SYSTEMS: TWO NEW APPROACHES
Get PDFThe sharp rise in electoral volatility in the last two decades calls for a new explanation of Western European party systems. The established party system theory—Lipset and Rokkan’s “freezing hypothesis”—is not confirmed by today’s data. But what framework should replace Lipset and Rokkan’s? One option is to focus on values in postmodern society, as French sociologist Alain Touraine does, by emphasizing how individualism trumps social cohesion formed by social cleavages. The rational-choice approach, combined with a principal-agent model perspective, offers another lens for exploring electoral volatility in Western Europe. In this paper, gross and net volatility are analysed with both Touraine’s sociological approach and with a new principal-agent model of political election, underlying dynamics
RADICAL PARTY SYSTEM CHANGES IN FIVE EAST-CENTRAL EUROPEAN STATES: EUROSCEPTIC AND POPULIST PARTIES ON THE MOVE IN THE 2010s
Get PDFThis paper, in addition to describing the historical trajectory of party systems in the new European Union member states in general, describes the particular cases of five new Eastern-Central European (ECE) member states (NMS-5, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia), and the recent emergence of new, second party systems that have recently emerged after the collapse of their first party systems. The main message of this paper is that the historical transformations of the NMS-5 can best be described using a matrix of four party types: 1) populist, 2) Eurosceptic, 3) protest, and 4) extreme-right. Although Eurosceptic parties have been in the forefront of recent analysis, the other three forms included in this matrix are equally important, and even enhance the understanding of Eurosceptic parties in the NMS-5. Like the international literature, the focus of this paper is also on party developments, but includes a complex approach that accounts not only for political, but also for socio-economic, developments in the NMS-5
TOWARDS PRONATALISM – BALTIC FAMILY POLICY IN EUROPEAN COMPARISON IN 2002 AND 2010
Get PDFThe majority of comparative analyses of family policy have been oriented towards western European countries and only very few have included Baltic and eastern European countries. The aim of this paper is to analyse family policy in Baltic countries in European comparison about ten years after regaining independence, in 2002, and in 2010. Family policy is divided into two categories for analysis: 1) support for families from around the birth of a child until the first birthday of the child, pronatalist policies; and 2) child well-being policies, support for the family when the child is older. All policy data are standardised according to the relative wealth in the particular country. Results demonstrate that after ten years of country specific family policy processes, Lithuania developed a very specific pronatalist family policy type compared with Estonia and Latvia. In 2010, Estonia and Latvia also obtained a more pronatalist approach, but the Baltic countries did not belong to any one particular crystallised family policy group