scholarly journals Tolerance vs intolerance: Latvia's case as an expression of value and institutional ambivalence

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (27) ◽  
pp. 126-134
Author(s):  
Oleksii Kokoriev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hate Speech ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
High Tolerance ◽  
Public Rhetoric ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Eu

The article examines Latvia's compliance with the EU's institutional and value strategy for promoting the principle of tolerance. The main manifestations of intolerance in the social and political life of Latvia as a "young" democracy are investigated. The legal gaps, the peculiarities of the political and legal culture of the population and other factors that cause intolerance in Latvia, despite this country's 2004 membership in the EU, have been emphasized. Institutional reforms aimed at strengthening the value of tolerance and preventing destructive intolerant practices are analysed. Providing tolerance for Latvia is called a challenge for this country. It was stressed that countering intolerance remains an important component of the country's still unfinished post- socialist democratization. Attention is paid to maintaining a high percentage of non-citizens in the population structure of Latvia. It is emphasized that in Latvia there is the highest level of sexual minority intolerance in the Baltic countries group, especially the expressed intolerance towards transgender and intersex people. It is noted that the legislation of Latvia is not yet fully consistent with the European Commission's General Policy Recommendation against Racism and Intolerance No. 7 in the fight against racism and racial discrimination. Attention is drawn to the lack of special services in law enforcement agencies to assist victims of hate speech. It has been stated that there is a lack of promotion of counter-speech in response to racist, homo- / transphobic hate speech on the part of high-ranking officials and public activists. This contributes to the fact that those who resort to hate speech do not feel public condemnation and increase their destructive presence in Latvia. Attention was drawn to the problem of preserving the marginalization of Roma, especially in the area of employment, provision of public health and education services. The article states that there are manifestations of anti-Semitism in Latvia, especially in Internet discourse. It is noted that despite the small number of refugees received in recent years by Latvia, there is a high level of intolerance of asylum seekers. At the same time, public opinion is often formed precisely because of the destructive public rhetoric of Latvian politicians. The general problem of Latvia is the high tolerance for violence in general – at home, at school, against certain social groups, etc. It is indicated that in this country there is a high tolerance for various destructive unlawful practices, such as involvement in the shadow economy, the purchase of smuggled goods, and so on. The author of the article argues that the reasons for the mentioned problems of Latvia are not least in the plane of the political and legal culture of the Latvians, in which the intolerance to diversity and the neoliberal-democratic values, on which the EU is oriented, are still quite strong.

Compliance of the Baltic States with the Principle of Tolerance as Condition for the Development of the United Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataliya Khoma ◽  
Oleksii Oleksii Kokoriev
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Social Phobias ◽  
Institutional Level ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Eu

The article studies the compliance of democracy of the Baltic States with the principle of tolerance. The study demonstrated specific social phobias (xenophobia, migrant phobia, homophobia, islamophobia, romaphobia, etc.), hate speech and other destructive trends in the Baltic countries that contradict values of liberal democracy. The authors argue that Baltic States face similar challenges of strengthening the principle of tolerance as well as how they differ in intolerance manifestations and mechanisms of their prevention and counteraction. In the Baltic States, issues related to promotion of tolerance are claimed to be common at two levels: at the institutional level (countries do not fulfil some of the EU guidelines aimed at enhancing the principle of tolerance); at the value level (population does not accept completely liberal-democratic values that the EU advocates).

scholarly journals PROBLEMS OF TOLERANCE/INTOLERANCE IN THE POLITICAL SPHERE OF ESTONIA AND LATVIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-153
Author(s):  
Nataliya M. Khoma
Keyword(s):  
Hate Speech ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The Political ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Eu

The aim of the article is to study the problems of intolerance in the Young Democracies of the EU on the example of Estonia and Latvia. The article is prepared on the basis of methodologies of neo-institutionalism, axiological (value) approach and comparative method. It has been proven that at the institutional level in Estonia and Latvia there is an understanding of the importance of preventing and combating intolerance. At the same time, in practice in these states there are manifestations of intolerance. An urgent problem is the rise of hate speech in political discourse. Tolerance towards members of sexual minorities remains acute, especially in Latvia. There has been some progress by Estonia in combating intolerance with regard to legalization for same-sex couples in civil partnerships. It is noted that the level of intolerance of Estonian society is significantly influenced by the political course of the ruling party EKRE. The author of the article argues that the voting of a significant number of Estonians and Latvians for parties that support anti-Semitic, xenophobic, homophobic, neo-racism, misogynistic ideas, shows the lack of stability of liberal-democratic values in the political and legal culture of the population. The state policy of the analyzed Baltic countries on combating intolerance covers only a part of the problems, and a number of others are silenced or openly ignored. The legal framework of Estonia and Latvia is not fully in line with EU law. Some EU recommendations on minimizing situations conducive to the spread of intolerant practices have not been implemented by Estonia and Latvia. As the range of problems of the quality of democracy in the EU countries has been steadily expanding in the last decade, their study remains a relevant area for political science. The article is theoretical in type using empirical data.

Locating Central and Eastern European emerging welfare regimes: is the youth welfare citizenship typology useful?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Broka ◽  
Anu Toots
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Regime ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Similar System ◽  
Economic Dimension ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Youth Welfare ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Eu

PurposeThe authors’ aim is to establish the variance of youth welfare citizenship regimes in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and to revisit the applicability of the regime approach to the emerging welfare regimes (EWRs).Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis follows the descriptive case study strategy aiming to discover diversity of youth welfare citizenship patterns. The case selection is made within the CEE country group, which includes countries in Central Europe, the Baltics, Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe, all sharing the communist past. The subdivision of these countries in reference to the welfare states can be made via the European Union (EU) membership based on the assumption that EU social policy frameworks and recommendations have an important effect on domestic policies. We included countries which are in the EU, i.e., with a similar political and economic transition path. There were three waves of accession to the EU in CEE countries. In the first wave (2004), all the Baltic countries, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia joined. In the second wave (2007), Romania and Bulgaria joined. Finally, Croatia joined the EU in 2013. Altogether 11 CEE countries are the EU members today, the remaining CEE countries are non-EU members and thus are excluded from the current research. Those countries which are part of the EU share similarities in social and economic reforms during the pre-accession period and after in order to reach a comparatively similar system with other member states. So, in terms of casing strategy these six countries can be named as emerging welfare regimes (EWRs) evolving transformations across different public policy areas. Handpicking of six countries out of 11 relies on the assumption that the Anglo-Saxon welfare system characteristics are more evident in the Baltic countries (Aidukaite, 2019; Aidukaite et al., 2020; Ainsaar et al., 2020; Rajevska and Rajevska, 2020) and Slovenia, while in Bulgaria and Croatia certain outcomes reflect the Bismarckian principles of social security (Hrast and Rakar, 2020; Stoilova and Krasteva, 2020; Dobrotić, 2020). This brings important variety into our analysis logic. Last but not least, we juxtapose six CEE EWR countries under analysis with six mature welfare regime countries representing different welfare regime types. Those mature welfare regime countries (Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, UK) are not an explicit object of the study but help to put analysed CEE EWR cases into larger context and thus, reflect upon theoretical claims of the welfare regime literature.FindingsThe authors can confirm that the EWR countries can be rather well explained by the welfare citizenship typology and complement the existing knowledge on youth welfare regime typology clusters in the Western Europe. Estonia is clustered close to the Nordic countries, whereas Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia and Slovenia are close to the Bismarckian welfare model despite rather flexible, non-restricted educational path, universal child and student support. Bulgaria is an outlier; however, it is clustered together with mature Mediterranean welfare regimes. Former intact welfare regime clusters are becoming more diverse. The authors’ findings confirm that there is no any intact cluster of the “post-communist” welfare regime and Eastern European countries are today “on move”.Research limitations/implicationsAltogether 11 CEE countries are the EU members today. The remaining CEE countries are non-EU members and thus are excluded from the current research. Those countries which are part of the EU share similarities in social and economic reforms during the pre-accession period and after in order to reach a comparatively similar system with other member states. At least one CEE country was chosen based on existing theoretical knowledge on the welfare regime typology (Anglo Saxon, Beveridgean, Bismarckian) for the Post-communist country groups.Practical implicationsIn the social citizenship dimension we dropped social assistance schemes and tax-relief indices and included poverty risk and housing measures. Youth poverty together with housing showed rather clear distinction between familialized and individualised countries and thus, made the typology stronger. In the economic dimension the preliminary picture was much fuzzier, mainly due to the comprehensive education in the region and intervention of the EU in domestic ALMPs (and VET) reforms. The authors added a new indicator (pro-youth orientation of ALMP) in order better to capture youth-sensitivity of policy.Social implicationsThe authors included a working poverty measure (in-work poverty rate) in order to reflect labour market insecurity as an increasing concern. Yet, the analysis results were still mixed and new indicators did not help locating the regime types.Originality/valueIn order to improve the validity of the youth welfare citizenship regime economic dimension, Chevalier's (2020) model may also be worth revisiting. The authors argue that this dichotomy is not sufficient, because inclusive type can have orientation towards general skills or occupational skills (i.e. monitored or enabling citizenship clusters), which is currently ignored. Chevalier (2020) furthermore associates inclusive economic citizenship with “coordinated market economies” (referring to Hall and Soskice, 2001), which seems hardly hold validity in the Nordic and at least some CEE countries.

scholarly journals The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Methodology and Research Prospects

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Ambroziak
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Political Literature ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
High Level

This review analyses The Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Terms and Ideas, a monograph written by Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz. The work describes the main concepts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s political language between 1569 and 1795. The study is mostly based on political literature, i. e. theoretical treatises and works devoted to relevant issues of the political life of the state. The author makes an attempt to create her own methodological approach, which consists of describing the political discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by analysing its basic concepts, i. e. “Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”, “law”, “freedom”, “forma mixta” and “separation of powers”, “consent”, “virtue”, “patriotism”, and “ancientry”. The scholar notes the small role that the concepts of “sovereignty”, “state”, and “property” played in political discourse. The reviewer compliments the wide range of literature used by the author and the high level of generalisations, due to which the work is a successful attempt at synthesising existing historiographic knowledge. At the same time, the reviewer points out further prospects for studying the issue: the application of a comparative approach, consideration of the context of ancient thought, analysis of differences in the political language in various parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the evolution of political discourse, as well as a significant expansion of the research base.

The New Image of Kaliningrad Region

2003 ◽  
pp. 40-52
Author(s):  
I. Samson ◽  
I. Eliseyeva
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Russian Regions ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
Kaliningrad Oblast ◽  
Poor Region ◽  
Kaliningrad Region ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Eu

The article deals with the problems of Kaliningrad Oblast which are very important taking into account the expansion of the EU. Many specialists continue to develop the myth of Kaliningrad as a poor region. However the scrupulous analysis shows that Kalinigrad is a well developed region comparing not only with Russian regions, but also with the Baltic countries and Poland. Moreover this region has developed since 1990 specific resources and assets and after 1999 has been enjoying high economic performance.

The Baltic States in the European Union: Main Characteristics of Membership and Their Anti-Russian Orientation

2021 ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Vladimir Olenchenko
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Current State ◽  
Contractual Obligations ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Eu

In 2019, the Baltic states passed the 15-year mark of membership in the European Union. This anniversary was not celebrated in the Baltic states or in the EU and did not attract attention of other countries. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the Baltic states chose not to join the CIS, but to join the EU. For Russia, the Baltic states are immediate geographical neighbours, which generate conflict in bilateral relations. The purpose of the study is to examine how the Baltic states' membership in the EU affected the main characteristics of their development and to what extent anti-Russian orientation of the Baltic foreign policy is due to EU membership. Achievement of this goal is seen through the solution of two tasks. The first is to study the current state of the Baltic economies. The second is to analyze the Baltic states conflict in relations with Russia within the EU. For the study, the method of comparing the statistical data of the EU for 2004-2019 was used in relation to the Baltic countries, as well as a comparison of the contractual obligations of relations between Russia and the EU with the practice of the Baltic countries. The results of the study show that the Baltic economies, despite long enough EU membership, remain subsidized. Conflict between the Baltic states and Russia does not directly come from the legal basis of their membership in the EU but is mostly due to several other external factors.

scholarly journals Converging or diverging trajectories of mortality under one year of age in the Baltic States: a comparison with the European Union

2021 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Genowska ◽  
Birute Strukcinskiene ◽  
Anita Villerusa ◽  
Jerzy Konstantynowicz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Infant Mortality ◽  
Health Expenditure ◽  
Fetal Mortality ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Macroeconomic Factors ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Background Information about trends in perinatal and child health inequalities is scarce, especially in the Eastern Europe. We analyzed how mortality under 1 year of age has been changing in the Baltic States and the European Union (EU) over 25 years, and what associations occurred between changes in macroeconomic factors and mortality. Methods Data on fetal, neonatal, infant mortality, and macroeconomic factors were extracted from WHO database. Joinpoint regression analysis was performed to analyze time trajectories of mortality over 1990–2014. We also investigated how the changes in health expenditures and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contributed to the changes in mortality. Results The reduction of fetal, neonatal and infant mortality in the Baltic countries led to convergence with the EU. In Estonia this process was the fastest, and then the rates tended to diverge. The strongest effect in reduction of neonatal mortality was related to the annual increase in health expenditure and GDP which had occurred in the same year, and a decrease in fetal mortality associated with an increase in health expenditure and GDP in the 4th and 5th year, respectively, following the initial change. Conclusions These findings outlined convergences and divergences in mortality under 1 year of age in the Baltic States compared with the patterns of the EU. Our data highlighted a need to define health policy directions aimed at the implementation of effective intervention modalities addressing reduction of risks in prenatal and early life.

scholarly journals ASSESSMENT OF THE PROSPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE RELATIONS OF THE BALTIC COUNTRIES AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-60
Author(s):  
Inna Stecenko
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
National Programs ◽  
The Eu

In the presented article, the author conducts research of export – import operations between the Baltic countries and the countries of Southeast Asia from 2016 to 2018, since the goal for the EU countries is to deepen economic relations between the countries of Asia; however, there has been no serious analysis of the potential of trade relations between the regions. Based on empirical studies, the countries of Southeast Asia are identified by the volume of export – import, which is significant in the economy of states. It has been revealed that the Baltic countries import more products from the countries of Southeast Asia; however, the increase in the competitiveness of the industries is related to the volume of exports as well. To strengthen trade relations between the regions of Asia and the EU, the implementation of the adopted UN resolution on the Transformation of our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the national programs on the development of the economy of countries, the author identified the potential for exports of the Baltic countries to the corresponding countries of Southeast Asia. The analysis of the number of tourists from the countries of Southeast Asia is carried out, the results of which show the potential for the growth of this industry and the strengthening of trade relations between countries. Taking into account the volume of trade between the Baltic regions and the countries of Southeast Asia, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises is shown. The author carries out the analysis of the conditions for the registration of SMEs in the Baltic countries, the number of employees in SMEs.

scholarly journals D. Trump as a Factor in the Political Demarcation in Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 76-83
Author(s):  
Pavel Ivanov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
White House ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Eu

The article analyzes the role of the American leader as an indicator of internal political contradictions in European society. The subject of the research is the socio-political differences in Europe in the context of attitudes towards the political course and personality of US President D. Trump. The purpose of the study is to identify the main political forces that approve and share D. Trump's policies in the EU countries, the reasons for support, and efforts to advance their positions. The US initiatives to change the European political landscape are disclosed. The reasons for the growth of support for the US President and the transformation of attitudes towards him in European countries are revealed. The author reveals the conflict potential of socio-political challenges and the sharpness of disagreements regarding the policy of the White House. Conclusions are drawn about the similarity of the socio-political delimitation in European countries and the United States, a high level of D. Trump's influence on the internal political processes in the EU is noted. The author came to the conclusion about the strengthening of support for the American president, the growing popularity of the conservative parties of the «political alternative» and the deepening of the internal political division, both in Europe and in the United States.

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