Reforming family policy in the Baltic States: The views of the elites

The aim of this paper is to explore the various views of the social policy elites in the Baltic States concerning family policy and, in particular, family benefits as one of the possible explanations for the observed policy differences. This study is based on semi-structured expert interviews from the three Baltic countries conducted in 2002. The qualitative analyses indicate that the Baltic States differ significantly with regard to the reasons behind their family policies. Lithuanian decision-makers seek to reduce poverty among families with children and enhance parents' responsibility for bringing up their children. Latvian policy-makers act so as to increase the birth rate and create equal opportunities for children from all families. Policies that seek to create equal opportunities for all children and the desire to enhance gender equality was more visible in the case of Estonia in comparison with the other two countries. This study thus indicate how intimately the attitudes of top-level bureaucrats, policy-makers and researchers shape social policy.     

Analysis of current events: “towards the rule of law in Kosovo: EULEX should go”

Strong civil society provides individuals with arenas to bring their interests to the attention of policymakers. In so doing, civil society organizations (CSOs) can support state policies, but can also criticize policies. This paper argues that most minority rights advocacy CSOs in the Baltic states have little say in the crafting of policy and are compartmentalized into the existing agendas, with only a few groups able to evaluate policies independently. It concludes that the Baltic civil society is weak because the CSOs working on minority issues ask policymakers either too much, or too little. The findings suggest that policymakers quell criticism of their work from the side of the CSOs by ignoring their activities. Alternatively, by funding the CSO that shores up the state agenda, policymakers delegate their responsibilities to civic actors, keep critical voices from public debates and claim that their policies have the full support of a vibrant civil society. This paper investigates the options available for civil society actors to relate to policymakers in a nationalizing state by drawing on the data collected in 77 semi-structured interviews with the CSOs working with Russian and Polish minorities in the Baltic states between 2006 and 2009.     

The Baltic Republics and the Crisis of 2008–2011

This essay explores how the Baltic republics responded to the crisis of 2008–2011. We argue that while there are significant differences in how the Baltic economies responded to the crisis, these responses not only remain within the neo-liberal policy paradigm characteristic of the region from the early 1990s, but that the crisis radicalised Baltic economies and particularly their fiscal stance. We show that there are a number of unique features in all three Baltic republics' political economies that made such a radicalisation possible. However, these unique features make it almost impossible for the Baltic experience to be replicable anywhere else in Europe.     

Fiscal Stress Management During the Financial and Economic Crisis: The Case of the Baltic Countries

The Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—were severely hit by the global financial and economic crisis in 2008–2011. In response to the crisis, all three states chose to undertake extensive fiscal consolidations. This article examines the strategies adopted by the Baltic governments for managing fiscal stress and consolidating their budgets in the light of the existing literature on cutback budgeting. In all three countries, the governments combined expenditure and revenue measures, with a larger share of adjustment taking place on the expenditure side. Among expenditure measures, a mix of across-the-board and targeted cuts was adopted, though the importance of targeted cuts increased over time. The case studies also indicate that although the theoretical propositions of the cutback budgeting literature point to the correct directions overall, further refinement is needed in several theoretical issues.     

Estonia's success: prescription or legacy?

This paper focuses on Estonia's post-communist transition and attempts to determine why it has been more successful than the other two Baltic states, Lithuania and Latvia. It proposes that the central factor conditioning the outcome of the Baltic states' transition process was their different experiences during the Soviet period. Although the post-independence reform program itself played a crucial role in Estonia's successful transition, the paper concludes that the seeds for the country's achievements can actually be found in its Soviet legacy: Estonia's selection of policies, their implementation and the resulting positive outcome were all dependent on favorable conditions which had been established in Estonia during the Soviet period. Significantly, these positive conditions had not been created in the other two Baltic states.     

A Soviet West: nationhood,regionalism, and empire in the annexed western borderlands

This article considers the role the Soviet Union's western borderlands annexed during World War II played in the evolution of Soviet politics of empire. Using the Baltic Republics and Western Ukraine as case studies, it argues that Sovietization had a profound impact on these borderlands, integrating them into a larger Soviet polity. However, guerrilla warfare and Soviet policy-making indirectly led to these regions becoming perceived as more Western and nationalist than other parts of the Soviet Union. The Baltic Republics and Western Ukraine differed in their engagement with the Western capitalist world. Different experiences of World War II and late Stalinism and contacts with the West ultimately led to this region becoming Soviet, yet different from the rest of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet West was far from uniform, perceived differences between it and the rest of the Soviet Union justified claims at the end of the 1980s that the Soviet Union was an empire rather than a family of nations.     

Reinventing ‘new’ Europe: Baltic perspectives on transatlantic security reconfigurations

This article examines the self-positioning of the three Baltic states in international politics in relation to the major structural pressures challenging the status quo of the transatlantic security configuration. The constitutive role of the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, the global economic recession, the debt crisis in the eurozone, and the shifting policy preferences and force projection of the United States towards Asia are explored as the key sources of the emerging Baltic security predicament. The empirical conclusions of the poststructuralist discourse analysis conducted for this study demonstrate how the Baltic states, in particular Estonia, have recently come to redefine the contents of ‘new’ Europe, thereby shifting the extant fault lines within the European Union.     

Muslims in Ottoman Europe: Population from 1800 to 1912

Work in the Baltic area is not easy and will not become so in the near future.

1. One has to command a number of languages in order to contribute.

2. The number of scholars interested in the Baltic is not great and they are widely dispersed. Hence, cooperation is impeded.

3. A student or scholar must become a Baltic specialist in terms of some other academic discipline.

4. Materials needed for studying the Baltic at a distance are scarce and dispersed. Even the best library holdings are none too extensive and existing collections are all too often not catalogued.

There are, however, positive aspects.

1. One can go to the area for short‐term visits with an idea of gaining insight into the locality and establishing personal contacts with resident scholars.

2. Funds, while not ample, are no more restricted than in other academic enterprises. In some respects, money is the resource most available.

     

How Dependent Are the Baltic States on Russia?

Abstract

This article explores the impact of international trade on private investment in the three post-Soviet Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—by applying the business cycle synchronisation theory and highlighting the importance of big neighbours for small open economies. The study covers 1995–2015. The study shows that changes in the GDP growth of trading partners can have a greater effect on domestic private investment in small open economies than GDP changes in their own economies. The ongoing business cycle synchronisation between Russia and the Baltic countries means that the impact of Russia as a big neighbour remains an important issue for the latter.     

From universal system of social policy to particularistic? The case of the Baltic States

This paper compares the system of social maintenance and insurance in the Soviet Union, which was in force in the three Baltic countries before their independence, with the currently existing social security systems. The aim of the paper is to highlight the forces that have influenced social policy transformation from its former highly universal, however authoritarian form, to the less universal, social insurance-based systems of present day Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.It will be demonstrated that the welfare–economy nexus is not the only important factor in the development of social programs. Rather, social policy should be studied as if embedded in the political, historical and cultural aspects of a given society. The people’s attitude towards distributive justice will be highlighted as being one of the most important factors for either social policy shortcomings or expansion.This paper takes steps to combine quantitative and qualitative data.     

Another Baltic Postcolonialism: Young Latvians,Baltic Germans,and the emergence of Latvian National Movement

This article looks at the emergence of Latvian nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century from the intercultural perspective of postcolonial theory. The writings of early Young Latvians, and the reaction to them from the dominant Baltic German elite, show that the emergence of a modern Latvian nationalism is to a large extent due to postcolonial mimicry, as described by Homi Bhabha. Attempts to imitate German cultural models and to develop a Latvian high culture lead to hostile reactions from the German side, which, in their turn, lead to increasing consolidation of Latvian nationalism. Since the Baltic German elite increasingly legitimized its rule in terms of cultural superiority, the Young Latvians' alliance with the Russian Slavophiles led it to treat the Latvian nationalists as culturally inferior and partly Asiatic, like the Russians.     

Sovereignty,networks, and norms

The literature on collective memories in the Baltic states often stresses the irreconcilable division between Russian and Baltic official interpretations of the Second World War. This paper seeks to challenge this popular notion of two polemic collective memories – “Latvian” and “Russian”. While there is evidence that Latvia's Russian-speakers are heavily influenced by Russian cultural and political discourses, I will argue that the actual positions taken up by Russian-speakers are more nuanced than a crude Latvian–Russian dichotomy would suggest.

Based on survey data collected at the site of the 2011 Victory Day celebrations in Riga, this paper points to the germane existence of a partial “democratization of history” among Latvia's Russian-speakers, typified by an increasing willingness to countenance and take stock of alternative views of history. Through an examination of the data it will be argued that such tentative steps towards a democratization of history are most visible among the younger cohort of Russian-speakers, whose collective memory-myths have been tempered by their dual habitation of the Latvian, as well as Russian, mythscapes. In order to more fully understand this process both bottom-up and top-down pressures will be examined.     

The Baltic states and Moscow's 9 May commemoration: Analysing memory politics in Europe

This article develops a three-level framework for analysing the role of memory in contemporary European politics. It tests the utility of this framework based on the three Baltic states and their public and political debates around the World War II anniversary commemorations in Moscow in 2005. Existing concepts for analysing the impact of memory on policy decisions are discussed first on the levels of domestic politics and bilateral relations. The article then provides a framework for researching a lesser acknowledged third level of memory politics within European institutions. The dilemma felt by the three Baltic presidents over whether or not to attend the Moscow ceremonies provides a unique opportunity to look at all three levels and demonstrate their relevance for understanding future memory struggles in an enlarged Europe.     

Changes of ethnic composition in the Baltic States

"The aim of this article is to analyze changes in the ethnic structure in the Baltics. The publication of the results of the 1989 Census data allows one to analyze the dynamics of ethnic structure in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania since the 1920s." The author notes that "as a result of significant changes in all demographic processes in the 90s, the proportion of the titular nationalities in all three Baltic States has increased for the first time, while the proportion of Slavs, particularly of Russians, decreased."     

Book notice

Tauno Tiusanen, The Baltic States: Small Countries in Transition. Helsinki: EVA, 1993, 55 pp., No price.     

Negotiating History for Reconciliation: A Comparative Evaluation of the Baltic Presidential Commissions

This article discusses the presidential historical commissions of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that were established in 1998 to research the crimes of the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes and to overcome interpretive disputes that had begun to overshadow the new democracies' politics. Conceptually framed as a state tool of historical conflict resolution and reconciliation, the Baltic commissions' structure, operative work and results all reveal many of the pitfalls, but also the opportunities of such official bodies of historical truth-seeking. The article concludes that even though all three commissions had a clear reconciliatory aim, their operative processes and final output differed remarkably. Their contribution to actual reconciliation was also very limited.     

Acknowledgement of the Secret Protocol of the German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact and the Declaration of State Sovereignty by the Union Republics of the USSR

In June 1989, the First Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union established the Commission for Historical and Legal Estimation of the Soviet–German Non-aggression Pact of 1939. In the commission, representatives from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania condemned the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, prompting heated arguments regarding the invalidity of the related secret protocol of the pact with other members who continued to hold the traditional Soviet ideological view of the pact as something positive. The debate over the secret protocol had the further potential to extend to disputes over ‘recovery of lost territory’ amongst the Baltic States, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Russia. This article analyses the arguments used by commission members, considering the interplay of national interests, how they balanced arguments between restoration of ‘state sovereignty’ and maintenance of borders, and how they finally compromised and concluded the commission's report.     

Russia and its Western Neighbours: A Comparative Study of the Security Situation in the Black,Baltic and Barents Sea Regions

Abstract

Since Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine in 2014, the security situation of Europe’s eastern ‘frontline states’ has undergone significant changes. In and around the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Barents Sea, the scope and scale of military activity has grown, as has the frequency of Russian–Western military encounters. Despite the many similarities between the three regions, and despite the increased risk of negative spillover from one region to another, there are also noteworthy regional differences. As of today, the security challenges appear to be more severe and pressing in the southern and central part of the ‘frontline’ than in the northern.     

Mortal threat: Latvian Jews at the dawn of Nazi occupation

In late June 1941, Nazi Germany stormed the borders of the Soviet Union, occupying the three Baltic republics within weeks. By the end of 1941, a significant proportion of the Jewish population had been murdered by German forces and local collaborators. In the days before full Nazi occupation of the territory, Latvia’s Jews confronted the question of whether to flee into the Russian interior or stay in their communities. History shows that this would be a critical choice. Testimonies and memoirs of Jewish survivors illuminate the competing motivations to leave or to remain. This article highlights the key factors that figured into these calculations and the interaction between individual agency and structural opportunities and obstacles in determining where Latvia’s Jews were when Holocaust in their homeland began.     

The ghost of essentialism and the trap of binarism: six theses on the Soviet empire

This article endeavors to open a new critical space for Soviet studies and for nationalities studies more generally. Through analyses of recent trends in Soviet studies, the article dismantles the frequently used opposition between subjective and objective approaches to Soviet empire and suggests instead that truths and categories, whether considered “subjective” or “objective,” are constructed discursively, through legitimizing certain interpretive models over the others. The article also argues against disciplinary avoidance of “what is” questions (e.g. “what is a nation?”) and claims that an excessive concern for (re)producing essentialism should not hinder scholarly inquiry. Several new lines of inquiry for the study of the Soviet empire are suggested and also applicable in nationalities studies more generally: research on the role of symbolic violence in manufacturing consent and research concerning the role of affect in producing linkages between the performative life of a singular human being and the pedagogical discourse of a nation or empire. The article also offers an analysis of the Soviet Union as an empire in becoming and it advocates for postcolonial approaches within Soviet studies. The practical dimensions of Soviet rule are exemplified with data from the Baltic borderlands in the postwar years.