The Process of Deterioration of Liberal Democracy in the Visegrad Group Countries: Institutional Perspective

Contemporary changes of liberal democracy affect different countries of the world. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, known as the Visegrad Group countries (V4), are among them. Although the countries seemed to be on a good way to consolidated democracy, about a decade ago the first symptoms of deterioration of liberal democracy became apparent. In the text, attention is focused on the institutional level, which should resist certain challenges in mature democracies. The institutions in V4 were weak and liable to be subordinated by strong political leaders and populist parties, and not strong enough to fight off illiberal tendencies. The analysis reveals that Poland and Hungary were more prone to compromise liberal democratic achievements, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia less so. This paper answers the questions of the institutional causes behind the deterioration of liberal democracy and the effects it brings.

The Problem of Integrity of the Integral Democracy Project

The topic of this paper is the most important principles of the concept of integral democracy created by Stasys Šalkauskis, Antanas Maceina and other Lithuanian interwar and post-war exodus intellectuals. The genesis and development of the ideas of integral democracy in interwar Lithuania are analyzed, also the influence of the experiences of World War II, occupations, totalitarian regimes and living in exodus on this concept. The projects of integral democracy, organic state and non-worldview politics are reviewed in their historical and intellectual context of Lithuania and the Lithuanian diaspora in exodus, starting from the origins of the idea and the concept of the organic state, also the most important criticism of it. The second part of the paper reviews the most important assumptions and ideas that unite the whole project from the 1936 concept of the organic state to the 1954–1955 ideas of integral democracy. Finally, looking at the fundamental differences between the two concepts the essence and key features of the project of full democracy are highlighted.

All Different, Yet All the Same? The Place of New Parties in Lithuanian Party System

One of the prominent feature of the Lithuanian party system is constant success of new parties. Based on political parties’ programmatic stances, this article investigates the place of these new parties in the Lithuanian party system. Using three different metrics (place in two-dimensional political spectrum, programmatic differences, nicheness), article aims at locating new parties in the party system as well as finding common denominators in party programmatic stances, which could let to assign new parties to the specific type of political parties. Analysis reveals that even though one cannot say, that all new parties are totally the same, there are common features that defines these parties (central position in the political spectrum, lack of clear programmatic niche, stressing common political issue, which separates them from traditional parties).

Dominating Concepts of Russian Federation Propaganda Against Ukraine (Content and Collocation Analyses of Russia Today)

The Russian Federation has been carrying out long-term and successful disinformation and propaganda activities against Ukraine. Due to its powerful, state-supported media structures, it is able to impose its vision of reality on its respective audiences. The purpose of this article is to determine the lexemes and topics of the “landscape” of analytical reports produced by Russia Today (RT) in 2018–2020. Lexemes and topics lay the groundwork for the RT propaganda discourse aimed at interfering and disbalancing Ukraine’s media space. This paper, based on quantitative and qualitative analysis, focuses on (1) the vocabulary structure of analytical materials, which may indicate Russian priorities, and (2) the thematic content (hidden topics) of RT messages. The RT analytical reports titles and relevant metadata were analyzed. The body of data was subdivided into periods of presidencies of P. Poroshenko and V. Zelensky. The authors argue that personalities do not play a significant role in the Kremlin’s attitude toward Ukraine; only the Ukraine-Russia opposition is decisive, in which the RF assigns Ukraine the only acceptable role as Russia’s “puppet.”

The Phenomenon of the Freedom Party: the Effect of Newness or the Beginning of a New Value Cleavage?

The article analyzes the reasons of success of the Freedom Party in the 2020 Seimas elections. The case of Freedom Party is particularly interesting as it did not appeal to the median voter like previous new parties, but took a clearly liberal stance on such vulnerable issues (in rather conservative Lithuanian society) as LGBT rights. The article examines several probable accounts of the success story of the party: the newness of the party, the value shift in the society and the realignment of the voters. The article employs the data of the 2020 post-election survey and other relevant data sets. The analysis revealed that the effect of novelty contributed somewhat to the success of the Freedom Party, but the main reason for its good performance was the ability to mobilize liberal-minded voters, the number of which increased significantly compared to the 2016 Seimas elections. The party was able not only to take advantage of the changing values of the new generation, but also to consolidate liberal-minded voters who were previously dispersed. The results of the analysis suggest that attitudes on the conservatism–liberalism dimension have become an important factor determining party preferences in Lithuania, while so far, the only significant cleavage in Lithuania was based on different attitudes towards Russia and the Soviet past.

Interpretation of military power in the context of realism paradigm

The article seeks to reveal the possibilities of a theoretical interpretation of power in the broad sense and military power in the narrow sense in the context of the realism paradigm, with a deep focus on including intangible resources in the interpretation of power. In the article, the interpretation of power is consciously grounded on the synthesis of power as resources and power as relation perspectives meanwhile applying this synthesis to the analysis of military power. Thus, military power is perceived as covering not only material but also non-material resources and as being contextual in nature. The article forms assumptions that the interpretation of military power depends on the security environment perception of the political and military elite: by changing warfare concepts and force employment methods they introduce military innovations, while military doctrines are an instrument of power conversion – through them the security environment perception is imparted and the structure of military power is changed. Such an interpretation of military power, combining different insights based on the paradigm of realism, allows the formation of an alternative approach to the interpretation of military power.

Transitional Justice in Rwanda: Analysis of Reconciliation Initiatives in Musha Village

The article examines how reconciliation is perceived at the individual level. This particular case study analyses what types of reconciliation practices exist in Musha village and whether or not the inhabitants see it as effective ones. In an attempt to investigate the reconciliation definition from the local people’s perspective and to observe their community-level experiences, ethnographic fieldwork in Rwanda has been conducted. This study reveals that locals understand reconciliation in the same way as the government authorities proclaim. Data gathered during this field trip indicate the significance of reconciliation as controlled by the national government. As a consequence, the people are not able, and at the same time, are not really concerned about rethinking reconciliation in other possible ways. Furthermore, this concludes the fact that the central authorities have become able to peacefully construct the narrative of forced reconciliation, while social exclusion in the country still robustly prevails.

The Role of Emotions in Mobilization of Society to Fight Climate Change: Constructing Emotional State to Inspire Mass Movement

How do emotions contribute to mobilizing the international community to join massive protests against climate change? Although it is common to superficially state that protests are full of various emotions, it remains unclear how emotions become collective on the international level and how they ensure the spread of mass mobilization. This research paper examines the process of collectivization of emotions and how it explains mass mobilization in the case of international climate change strikes. This paper raises the question of how the emotional environment was favourably constructed in Greta Thunberg’s case in order to mobilize international society to join climate change strikes, and it aims to reveal how group emotions play an important role in successful international mobilization. Based on Sarah Ahmed’s theory of cultural politics of emotions and James M. Jasper’s theory linking emotions and social movements, it is assumed that specific emotions were circulated to create a distinct emotional environment that inspired the international community to join Thunberg’s climate strike. An Emotional Discourse Analysis revealed that Thunberg’s speeches are full of emotional potential that provokes reactive emotions such as fear, anger and hope in the global society and establishes an injustice-based framing of the problem as well as the dichotomy between the political elite and the global society. This study contributes to the research field of emotions in international relations by exploring in more depth the collectivization of emotions and expands the theory of cultural politics of emotions to include explanations of international politics phenomena such as mass mobilization.

Lithuanian Political Parties in the Age of Populism: Content Analysis of the 2016 and 2020 Seimas Election Programmes

During the spread of populism in politics, we know little about the prevalence of populism in the discourse of Lithuanian political parties. This article presents a content analysis of Lithuanian political parties’ manifestos for the 2016 and 2020 parliamentary elections. The results show that references to the people as a homogeneous unit are relatively widespread, but the number of anti-elitist paragraphs in party programmes is lower. We can divide the parties into three groups according to the level of populism. The most populist parties, located at the fringes of the party system, received little support from the voters in the Seimas elections. Parties that presented relatively high numbers of people-centrist paragraphs and a relatively moderate criticism of the elite proved to be much more successful in the election.