In this work author pursuing to compare Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian institutions of the constitutional justice, bring out similarities and differences. To take notice of place of these institutions in states government system, method of formation, judge status, jurisdiction of institutions, process basic features, and determined judgments legal force. Of every democratic countries law systems fundament is constitution, so it is very important to guarantee the supremacy of law. Undoubtedly institutions of constitutional justice takes up one of the important place in assurance of constitutional conformity in state. author analyses institutions which implement constitutional control in most related neighbor countries: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In Lithuania and Latvia to fulfill this function there are established special institutions – Constitutional courts, meanwhile in Estonia this function is dedicated to supreme instance of common court system – Supreme Court, and if to make clear, one of constituent part of this court – Constitutional Review Chamber. Also, the fundamental models of constitutional justice and it's variety, and the history of constitutional justice institutions in Baltic states were discussed in brief in this work. Author analyses, why these institutions are considered to be a part of common court system. Basing on descriptive, comparative and analysis method were investigated the order of these institution formation, legal status of judges, the... [to full text]

Diss. Stockholm : Stockholms universitet, 2008.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2004. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning). Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2005. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): David Abenheim, Tjarck Roessler. "AD-A406 029." Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-74). Also available online.

Russia has always been a primary factor in the development of the Baltic States. It is impossible to analyse Baltic security without looking into the processes inside Russia and the prevailing trends vis-a-vis the Baltic States. However, the changes in the Baltic security landscape in the 21st century lack a comprehensive analysis. This thesis seeks to bridge the gap. Two key aims are being pursued in this thesis. The first is to present an analysis of Russia's European agenda under President Vladimir Putin and to examine the place of the Baltic States in this agenda. The second aim is to define Russia-related threats and challengers to the Baltic States, as well as prospects in Russo-Baltic relations. To attain these aims, inter-active approach to international relations, comprising three levels of analysis - the international system, the nation state (domestic level) and the individual (personality) level - has been applied. The neo-realist paradigm of international relations theory, comparative analysis and the Knudsen model, which addresses the peculiarities of relations between great powers and small states, are the methodological framework of the thesis. When analysing the development of Russo-Baltic relations in 1990-2006, this thesis focuses on the evolution of the Baltic States from factors to actors and their chance of shaping Russo-Baltic relations from within the enlarged EU and NATO. It also examines possibilities for more active engagement of Russia in the Baltic region. The thesis concludes with an analysis of perspectives for the Baltic States in countering Russia-related threats and building cooperativer elations with Russia. The author maintains that 'high politics' in Russo-Baltic relations has ended, yet, the tensions do remain in 'low politics'. Russia seeks to retain her political and economic influence in the Baltics by exploiting various tools, primarily economic levers and Baltic dependence upon Russian energy.

The thesis covers the topic of nominal convergence in terms of Maastricht convergence criteria applied to Baltic States, followed by multicriteria analysis of real convergence.

This dissertation takes a step towards providing a better understanding of post-socialist welfare state development from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. The overall analytical goal of this thesis has been to critically assess the development of social policies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania using them as illustrative examples of post-socialist welfare state development in the light of the theories, approaches and typologies that have been developed to study affluent capitalist democracies. The four studies included in this dissertation aspire to a common aim in a number of specific ways. The first study tries to place the ideal-typical welfare state models of the Baltic States within the well-known welfare state typologies. At the same time, it provides a rich overview of the main social security institutions in the three countries by comparing them with each other and with the previous structures of the Soviet period. It examines the social insurance institutions of the Baltic States (old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, short-term benefits, sickness, maternity and parental insurance and family benefits) with respect to conditions of eligibility, replacement rates, financing and contributions. The findings of this study indicate that the Latvian social security system can generally be labelled as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models. The Estonian social security system can generally also be characterised as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models, even if there are some weak elements of the targeted model in it. It appears that the institutional changes developing in the social security system of Lithuania have led to a combination of the basic security and targeted models of the welfare state. Nevertheless, as the example of the three Baltic States shows, there is diversity in how these countries solve problems within the field of social policy. In studying the social security schemes in detail, some common features were found that could be attributed to all three countries. Therefore, the critical analysis of the main social security institutions of the Baltic States in this study gave strong supporting evidence in favour of identifying the post-socialist regime type that is already gaining acceptance within comparative welfare state research. Study Two compares the system of social maintenance and insurance in the Soviet Union, which was in force in the three Baltic countries before their independence, with the currently existing social security systems. The aim of the essay is to highlight the forces that have influenced the transformation of the social policy from its former highly universal, albeit authoritarian, form, to the less universal, social insurance-based systems of present-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This study demonstrates that the welfare–economy nexus is not the only important factor in the development of social programs. The results of this analysis revealed that people's attitudes towards distributive justice and the developmental level of civil society also play an important part in shaping social policies. The shift to individualism in people’s mentality and the decline of the labour movement, or, to be more precise, the decline in trade union membership and influence, does nothing to promote the development of social rights in the Baltic countries and hinders the expansion of social policies. The legacy of the past has been another important factor in shaping social programs. It can be concluded that social policy should be studied as if embedded not only in the welfare-economy nexus, but also in the societal, historical and cultural nexus of a given society. Study Three discusses the views of the state elites on family policy within a wider theoretical setting covering family policy and social policy in a broader sense and attempts to expand this analytical framework to include other post-socialist countries. The aim of this essay is to explore the various views of the state elites in the Baltics concerning family policy and, in particular, family benefits as one of the possible explanations for the observed policy differences. The qualitative analyses indicate that the Baltic States differ significantly with regard to the motives behind their family policies. Lithuanian decision-makers seek to reduce poverty among families with children and enhance the parents’ responsibility for bringing up their children. Latvian policy-makers act so as to increase the birth rate and create equal opportunities for children from all families. Estonian policy-makers seek to create equal opportunities for all children and the desire to enhance gender equality is more visible in the case of Estonia in comparison with the other two countries. It is strongly arguable that there is a link between the underlying motives and the kinds of family benefits in a given country. This study, thus, indicates how intimately the attitudes of the state bureaucrats, policy-makers, political elite and researchers shape social policy. It confirms that family policy is a product of the prevailing ideology within a country, while the potential influence of globalisation and Europeanisation is detectable too. The final essay takes into account the opinions of welfare users and examines the performances of the institutionalised family benefits by relying on the recipients’ opinions regarding these benefits. The opinions of the populations as a whole regarding government efforts to help families are compared with those of the welfare users. Various family benefits are evaluated according to the recipients' satisfaction with those benefits as well as the contemporaneous levels of subjective satisfaction with the welfare programs related to the absolute level of expenditure on each program. The findings of this paper indicate that, in Latvia, people experience a lower level of success regarding state-run family insurance institutions, as compared to those in Lithuania and Estonia. This is deemed to be because the cash benefits for families and children in Latvia are, on average, seen as marginally influencing the overall financial situation of the families concerned. In Lithuania and Estonia, the overwhelming majority think that the family benefit systems improve the financial situation of families. It appears that recipients evaluated universal family benefits as less positive than targeted benefits. Some universal benefits negatively influenced the level of general satisfaction with the family benefits system provided in the countries being researched. This study puts forward a discussion about whether universalism is always more legitimate than targeting. In transitional economies, in which resources are highly constrained, some forms of universal benefits could turn out to be very expensive in relative terms, without being seen as useful or legitimate forms of help to families. In sum, by closely examining the different aspects of social policy, this dissertation goes beyond the over-generalisation of Eastern European welfare state development and, instead, takes a more detailed look at what is really going on in these countries through the examples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In addition, another important contribution made by this study is that it revives ‘western’ theoretical knowledge through ‘eastern’ empirical evidence and provides the opportunity to expand the theoretical framework for post-socialist societies.

Title: Regional Identity and Regional Differentiation of the Baltic Countries Author: Josef Miškovský Key words: regional identity, regional differentiation, Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania he thesis deals with the regional identity of the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) at different scale levels. The theoretical baselines of the thesis are the dynamic concepts of institutionalization of the regions and their formation, disappearance and restoration. This abstract view on the formation of regional identity is based on theories of social identity and social representation. In the thesis, mainly the "macroidentity" of the Baltic States, i.e. their formation in the space between the European and the Russian spheres and within the superior regions of northern, eastern and central Europe is evaluated. The concepts of these regions and subsequently their influence on the territorial identity of the Baltic States are discussed. The elements of internal identity of individual Baltic States, according to which the Baltic region can be considered a distinctive region within the concept of northeastern Europe, are discussed in later section of the thesis. Attention is also paid to the internal coherence of the Baltic region and the elements that integrate or disintegrate this...

Energy security is currently a favourite topic. It is being talked about in the context of several conflicts in Third World countries that, due to the supply of energy raw materials such as oil and gas, affect the rest of the world. For some states, however, the issue of ensuring energy security is a more vital. Some states, such as the Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, are dependent on supplies of fossil fuels from neighbouring countries. Moreover, up until recently their energy markets have not been liberalized, nor connected to the rest of the Europe. It is a well-known fact that the Russian Federation is the main supplier of these raw materials to them. Therefore, the Baltic states have been trying to reduce the influence of the Russian Federation in the Baltic region since they regained independence 26 years ago. This diploma thesis deals with the analysis of the energy security of all three Baltic countries. The thesis carefully analyses all aspects of their energy sector. It examines the historical development of the region, thanks to which we can understand the influence of the Russian Federation on the Baltics energy sector, as well as the level of international cooperation of the Baltic states with the EU in ensuring energy security. The analysis also focus on the...