Lithuania in European Politics


Book Description

At the start of the 20th century, little thought was given to Lithuania as important to the larger political arena. During the time between the two World Wars, Lithuania drew attention as it won--and then lost--independent statehood. The authors here reveal how this small country, caught at the intersection of Europe's great powers, was compelled to follow a foreign policy of survival.




Politics of Energy Dependency


Book Description

Energy has been an important element in Moscow’s quest to exert power and influence in its surrounding areas both before and after the collapse of the USSR. With their political independence in 1991, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania also became, virtually overnight, separate energy-poor entities heavily dependent on Russia. This increasingly costly dependency – and elites’ scrambling over associated profits – came to crucially affect not only relations with Russia, but the very nature of post-independence state building. The Politics of Energy Dependency explores why these states were unable to move towards energy diversification. Through extensive field research using previously untapped local-language sources, Margarita M. Balmaceda reveals a complex picture of local elites dealing with the complications of energy dependency and, in the process, affecting the energy security of Europe as a whole. A must-read for anyone interested in Eastern Europe, Russia, and the politics of natural resources, this book reveals the insights gained by looking at post-Soviet development and international relations issues not only from a Moscow-centered perspective, but from that of individual actors in other states.




Lithuania


Book Description

Lithuanian economic, political and social development should be assessed from a historical perspective because Lithuania regained its independence in 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Lithuania: Political, Economic and Social Issues opens with an analysis of the three stages of political, economic and social development in the period of Lithuanian independence.Next, the authors discuss the implementation of a very important human right, the prohibition of torture. In recent years, the European Court of Human Rights has recognized that the prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment also has a procedural dimension. In the case of Kraulaidis v. Lithuania, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the official investigation into a traffic accident, which left the applicant permanently disabled, was so insufficient as to amount to a violation of Article 3 ECHR.Railway transportation plays an important role in the socioeconomic development of the greater number of all 195 independent countries in the world in general, and in Lithuania in particular. As such, one assessment aims to examine the situational analysis of the rail transport sector in Lithuania during the periods of Russian tsarist oppression (18591915), Soviet occupation (19441990) economic transition (19901995), economy growth (19962007) and integration into today's European transport network (2010now).Next, the authors aim to identify the role played by childhood and adolescent experiences in the formation of pro-violence attitudes and on self-assessed violent behavior in early adulthood. Recent statistical information about crime and criminal justice issues in the European Union indicates that over the past decade, violent crime rates have decreased in Lithuania.In the final chapter, beginning with the notion that state broadcasters are entitled to basic human rights, including the right to free speech, the authors demonstrate how the goals of protecting journalistic human rights and freedoms and securing quality standards in journalism can be reconciled within the framework provided by the European Convention on Human Rights.




Comparative Politics and Government of the Baltic States


Book Description

This book traces the development of the political institutions, electoral systems, parties, civil society, economic and social policies and foreign affairs of the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania over the last quarter century.




New Lithuania in Old Hands


Book Description

Based on detailed ethnographic material, "New Lithuania in Old Hands" analyzes the impact that European Union accession has had upon the country's aging smallscale farmers, and describes how the reality of Lithuania's EU membership has been a far cry from the scenarios of wealth and overabundance once promised. The text reveals that, in many instances, membership has resulted in a return to subsistence production, increased insecurity and a reinforcement of kinship obligations. Thus instead of treating the European Union as an elite project and voicing the support of various other segments of the population, this volume shows how broad parts of the rural population have been affected by and engaged in processes of change following Lithuania's accession - changes that threaten to have a large impact upon the future of the country's family structures and its farming demographic.




On Baltic Slovenia and Adriatic Lithuania


Book Description

The book provides an innovatory internationally comparative causal analysis of the variation in political and economic outcomes of post-communist transformations after the first decade, using multi-value qualitative comparative analysis and TOSMANA software. This analysis includes a critical revision of received dichotomies (e.g. on gradualism versus "shock therapy") about post-communist transformation, a discussion of the counterfactual scripts of post-communist transformation, and contributes to current debates on the varieties of post-communist capitalism. This conceptual framework is applied in case studies of the transformation in the Baltic States, with special consideration given to the possibility of alternatives to the Lithuanian way and the challenges of populism in this country's politics. Book jacket.




A Pragmatic Alliance


Book Description

Discusses the political cooperation between Jews and Lithuanians in the Tsarist Empire from the last decades of the 19th century until the early 1920s. These years saw the transformation of both Jewish and Lithuanian political life. Within the Jewish community, the previously dominant integrationists were now challenged both by those who believed that the Jews were not a religious but an ethnic or proto-nationalist group and those who believed that only with the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist state would Jewish integration be possible. Among the Lithuanians, the emergence of a modern national identity became increasingly prevalent.




Developments in Central and East European Politics 5


Book Description

The new edition of this market-leading text brings together specially commissioned chapters by a team of top international scholars on the changing politics of this diverse region negotiating the competing pulls of the European Union and post-communist Russia.




The EU Common Security and Defence Policy


Book Description

Presenting the first analytical overview of the legal foundations of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), this book provides a detailed examination of the law and practice of the EU's security policy. The European Union's security and defence policy has long been the focus of political scientists and international relations experts. However, it has more recently become of increasing relevance to lawyers too. Since the early 2000s, the EU has carried out more than two dozen security and defence missions in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The EU institutions are keen to stress the security dimension of other external policies also, such as development cooperation, and the Lisbon Treaty introduces a more detailed set of rules and procedures which govern the CSDP. This book provides a legal analysis of the Union's CSDP by examining the nexus of its substantive, institutional, and economic dimensions. Taking as its starting point the historical development of security and defence in the context of European integration, it outlines the legal framework created by the rules and procedures introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. It examines the military operations and civilian missions undertaken by the Union, and looks at the policy context within which they are carried out. It analyses the international agreements concluded in this field and explores the links between the CSDP and other external policies of the Union.




National Constitutions in European and Global Governance: Democracy, Rights, the Rule of Law


Book Description

This two-volume book, published open access, brings together leading scholars of constitutional law from twenty-nine European countries to revisit the role of national constitutions at a time when decision-making has increasingly shifted to the European and transnational level. It offers important insights into three areas. First, it explores how constitutions reflect the transfer of powers from domestic to European and global institutions. Secondly, it revisits substantive constitutional values, such as the protection of constitutional rights, the rule of law, democratic participation and constitutional review, along with constitutional court judgments that tackle the protection of these rights and values in the transnational context, e.g. with regard to the Data Retention Directive, the European Arrest Warrant, the ESM Treaty, and EU and IMF austerity measures. The responsiveness of the ECJ regarding the above rights and values, along with the standard of protection, is also assessed. Thirdly, challenges in the context of global governance in relation to judicial review, democratic control and accountability are examined. On a broader level, the contributors were also invited to reflect on what has increasingly been described as the erosion or ‘twilight’ of constitutionalism, or a shift to a thin version of the rule of law, democracy and judicial review in the context of Europeanisation and globalisation processes. The national reports are complemented by a separately published comparative study, which identifies a number of broader trends and challenges that are shared across several Member States and warrant wider discussion. The research for this publication and the comparative study were carried out within the framework of the ERC-funded project ‘The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance’. The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, judges and legal advisors working on the interface between national constitutional law and EU and transnational law. The extradition cases are also of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of criminal law. Anneli Albi is Professor of European Law at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Samo Bardutzky is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.