Still "Treading Air"? Looking at the Post-Enlargement Challenges to Democracy in the Baltic States

Abstract

In the novel Treading Air by Estonian novelist Jaan Kroos, the character Ullo shares his story about changes during the Soviet occupation following World War II.1 Ullo concentrates on the changes brought about by Sovietization and uses the metaphor treading air to illustrate working hard for no return. With the Soviet occupation, political, economic, and cultural life was transformed in the Baltic region. Likewise, Europeanization is reshaping Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Of the post-Soviet states, the Baltic states have outshone all others in terms of democratic and economic transition. Even in terms of Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic states have done well alongside countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Nevertheless, they still have challenges to democracy, like all states. Never have politicians in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania considered enlargement to be the solution to all of their problems, but rather a strategy for improving their ability to deal with these challenges. Over three years on from European Union (EU) enlargement, I look at the persistent challenges to democracy in the Baltic states and ask the question, are they still treading air?As a way of teasing out these challenges, I concentrate on two areas prevalent in the three Baltic states, to lesser and greater degrees. The first issue is the state of political corruption. Corruption still dogs Baltic politics, especially in Latvia and Lithuania, although Estonia is not immune. Most recently, questions of corruption have developed surrounding the Ventspils mayor and new Latvian president, Valdis Zatlers, who has confirmed taking bribes in his past job as a medical doctor. Although no country is free of corruption, the Baltic states still experience particular opportunities for corruption that are largely to do with economic and political transition. Second, I look at the status of the social integration projects in Estonia and Latvia. Each state has chosen similar but varied paths to dealing with the large Russian-speaking communities in their midst. With the recent bronze solider riots in Tallinn in mind, I examine whether the social integration projects are working. Before I look at these challenges in the Baltic context, I discuss how far the Baltic states have come.From One Union to AnotherEstonia's, Latvia's, and Lithuania's trails from Soviet republics to EU member states are quite remarkable. While the Baltic states experienced interwar independence, the three societies largely had to build new states from scratch. Even before the end of occupation, the Baltic Republics, along with the rest of the Soviet Union, began to experiment with electoral democracy. The democratically elected fronts led the way to Baltic independence and to three burgeoning democracies. In Estonia and Latvia, the moderate fronts vied for political power with the nationalist citizen's com-mittees. In both states, the parties, Isamaa and Tevzemei un Brivibai, respectively, gained control of the government in the first post-Soviet elections. The purpose of the Fatherland parties was to titularize (confirming to the nation's title) the two states; thus Estonia for Estonians and Latvia for Latvians.2 The result of the two national elections was the establishment of an exclusive restorationist state. On the other hand, the Lithuanian electorate took a different path altogether.3 The moderate people's front, Saju dis, and the social democratic Lithuanian Democratic Worker's Party (LDDP), Lietuvos demokratine darbo partija, gained the most seats to gear the country to a new inclusive state. These early choices would differentiate the two northern littoral states from the one in the south in many ways, although all three would take a similar path to EU membership.The new governments' role was to engineer and manage several simultaneous and interrelated processes. Arguably the most important process has been democratization coupled with titularization. …