Political Culture in the Baltic States

Abstract

Drawing on an original 2014 public opinion survey, this paper offers a brief overview of contemporary political orientations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Looking specifically at performace-related system support and attitudes towards democracy, the paper demonstrates significant cross-national as well as ethnic attitudinal differences in the region. Support for democracy does not seem to be overly strong in the Baltic states, but the key finding is that public support for democracy is still comparatively stronger than support for authoritarian rule. This is tentatively good news: as long as support for non-democratic regime alternatives does not exceed support for a democratic polity, democracy may be deemed to have sufficient legitimacy among citizens, and the risk of a democratic breakdown in the Baltic states must be regarded as insignificant.

More than neighbours: Assessing crisis narratives of Nordic-Baltic elites in the context of European Union’s eastern border

“…While investigating the reasons behind this imbalance might be beyond the scope and the empirical possibilities of this article, it is fair to suppose that such differences between Nordic and Baltic MEPs might be -to a large extent -related to the different nature of the leftist and progressive forces in the two domestic contexts. In particular, the higher de-ideologization of the political dynamics and the more moderate ideological roots of the left forces in the Baltics (Duvold et al 2020;Pettai and Kreuzer 1998) might, at least partly, help explain the limited emphasis on de-securitization and humanitarian action among the progressive Baltic MEPs. The features of the domestic party systems should not be seen as alternative explanations vis-à-vis the impact of the perceived distance of the crisis, but rather as magnifiers of such impact.…”

Pariahs or Partners?

“…Similar to Estonia, the proportion of ethnic Russians in the Latvian population had risen from about ten per cent in 1935 to over one-third in 1989 (Auers 2013, 96). Hence, the ethno-linguistic divide was essentially connected to the regime divide in Latvia as well (Duvold, Berglund, and Ekman 2020). While Estonia introduced gradual reforms to reduce the nativist elements in its political system, Latvia's minority policies have remained relatively strict and exclusive over the past three decades (Nakai 2014).…”

“…Unity, for instance, has been held responsible for the country's "fairly orthodox pro-market policies" (Duvold, Berglund, and Ekman 2020, 61). The party, and in particular prime minister Dombrovskis, fiercely defended Latvia's drastic austerity measures in the context of the economic crisis in the late 2000s (Sommers 2014; see also Duvold, Berglund, and Ekman 2020). On the socio-cultural dimension, Unity's version of ethno-linguistic nationalism was more moderate than that of the NA.…”

CEO Type and Firm Performance: Evidence from Nasdaq Baltic

“…The Baltic nations offer an intriguing context for studying performance differences between CEO types, given the recent establishment of private sector firms following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have made remarkable progress in adopting market economy principles (EBRD, 2022;Duvold et al, 2020) and decentralizing decision-making authority from the state to the firm level (Lainela, 2000). During this same period, within newly established private sector firms, the CEO position was predominantly occupied by either the sole shareholder or one of the shareholders.…”