Political culture in the Baltic states: between national and European integration

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Latvija (Latvia); Estija (Estonia); Politinė kultūra; Valstybingumas; Pilietybė; Depopuliacija; Partinės sistemos; Politinės subkultūros; Demokratija; Lithuania; Latvia; Political culture; Statehood; Citizenship; Depopulation; Party systems; Political subcultures; Democracy; Rusija (Russia).

ENSituated on the Baltic Eastern Seaboard, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania share the same geopolitical fate. They have been caught in the middle of the tug of war between Russia and Western great powers—whether Swedes, Danes, Poles or Germans—for centuries, but have been within the Russian sphere of interest most of the time. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had been part of the Tsarist Empire since 1795 when it collapsed in 1917; they were literally forced into the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1940 and they remained trapped as Soviet republics until 1991 when the pending breakdown of the Soviet Union opened up a window of opportunity for the Baltic countries to regain the independence that they had enjoyed between the two world wars (1918–1940). Their return to Europe as independent states in the early 1990s was accompanied by the restoration of competitive political pluralism and market economy. Close ties with the West were generally seen as the best way to make the region safe for democracy; and European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership soon emerged as the top foreign policy priorities of the governments in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. In the spring of 2004, less than a decade and a half later, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had become full-fledged EU and NATO member states along with a number of post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are not the only new arrivals to NATO and the EU to have completed a triple transition,1 but they stand out as the only members of the West European system of alliances grappling with a Soviet past. [From the Introduction]

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