In the last decade there has been a process of rolling-back Europeanization efforts in the EU’s new member states (NMS), a process intensified by the global crisis. This de-Europeanization and de-democratization process in the NMS has become a significant part of a more general polycrisis in the EU. The backslide of democracy in the NMS as a topical issue has usually been analysed in terms of macro-politics, formal-legal state institutions, party systems, and macroeconomics. The most significant decline of democratization, however, is evident in the public’s decreasing participation in politics and in the eroding trust. This decline in systemic trust in political elites in the NMS has been largely neglected by analysts. Therefore, this paper concentrates on this relatively overlooked dimension of declining trust and social capital in the NMS. This analysis employs the concepts of governance, trust, and social capital to balance the usual formalistic top-down approach with a bottom-up approach that better illustrates the divergence between East-Central Europe and the Baltic states’ sub-regional development.

In this article I analyse how Georgia, as a political entity, coped with the de facto loss of two of its territories: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The process by which Georgia lost these territories started in early 1990 and reached its final phase in 2008 after the Georgian-Russian war. This article explores how Georgia adjusted to these losses without ever acknowledging its loss of the two territories, demonstrating a perfect example on how the normative territorial structure of an international system works. The analysis focuses on the crucial role of time in the process of the de facto territorial changes and examines how Georgia, in adapting to territorial losses and through its own actions, actually strengthened its separation from Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

This article examines the decision–making processes within political parties in Latvia. Two important variables have been chosen for analysis: 1) policy formulation (which actors are involved in the elaboration of election programs), and 2) candidate selection (how parties create their electoral lists). A survey of Saeima (Latvia’s parliamentary body) deputies indicates that party board members have the most say in deciding which individuals to include on electoral lists and which policies to pursue; financial supporters seem to have almost no impact on parties’ internal decision-making processes.

This paper aims to determine Lithuania’s, Latvia’s, and Estonia’s parties’ positions on the European Union (EU) and to ascertain whether these party positions mirror their voters’ positions on the EU. Analysis suggests that parties in this region have rather varied positions on the EU, with the exception of hard-Eurosceptic views, which are absent in Baltic states’ party systems. This paper also indicates that parties in the Baltic states tend to mirror, with some exceptions, their voters positions on the EU. This suggests that there may be additional factors determining parties’ positions regarding the EU in the Baltics.

In this article we describe the adoption and execution of public administration reforms in Central and Eastern Europe between 2008 and 2013, as well as examine whether post-communist countries differ from other groups of European countries in terms of the substance of reforms and their implementation process. Instead of following popular Western administrative theoretical frames, we adopt the policy process approach. We focus on the role of policy actors during reform policymaking and implementation at the level of policy subsystems. More specifically, we employ the rational-comprehensive and garbage can perspectives to understand the reform processes in the post-communist region. Our research is based on the statistical analysis of survey data and two case studies of reforms initiated by the 2008-2012 Lithuanian government. The article concludes that countries in Central and Eastern Europe share some common characteristics: they focused on the issues of civil service and public or administrative services, their reform policy was often formulated on a top-down basis, and its execution often lacked adequate capacities. Despite a rational reform façade in these countries, the implementation of governance change appears to be quite erratic, as anticipated in the garbage can perspective. This can have negative consequences on the effectiveness of public policy, continuing to generate public distrust in post-communist state institutions.

For those who want to better grasp the political and socio-economic trajectory of Lithuania since its accession to the EU, this edited volume provides a wealth of information and insights. It touches upon a variety of themes ranging from the politicization of LGBT rights to Lithuania’s bumpy road to the eurozone. While this constitutes an interesting and informative read, the book sometimes struggles to maintain theoretical and conceptual cohesion throughout all chapters.[...]

Though 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.

In 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.

Today, ensuring security in cyberspace is a top priority of national security policy for most states. States’ approaches to cybersecurity can be divided into two categories: those that regard cybersecurity as a civilian task; and those that involve their militaries in creating or implementing cybersecurity policies. Those states that have incorporated cyberwarfare into their military planning and organization perceive cyberattacks as a threat to their national security, while states that charge their civilian agencies with domestic cybersecurity missions classify cyber intrusions as security risks for only particular sectors. Adopting the framework of securitization theory, this article theorizes both civil and military approaches to cybersecurity and threat perceptions and their sources. The theoretical framework is then applied to a study of the cybersecurity policies of Central European countries and the Baltic States.

Given 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.