Baltic foreign policy making establishments of the 1990s: Influential institutional and individual actors

Abstract

This article examines, evaluates, and compares the role of political institutions in the foreign policy making process of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the 1990s. The central claim advanced is that the extent of influence exercised by political institutions in transitional states was largely conditioned by, and depended on, the individuals who headed these institutions. It is argued that the stronger the personality at the top of a political institution, the greater and more influential role it played in the foreign policy making process of the country.