The dynamics of the attitudes towards Lithuania's membership in the EU could be divided into three periods: decreasing number of membership supporters till the beginning of 2000 (distrust in state institutions, lack of information, economical fears), increasing support till referendum (informational campaign, beliefs in positive impact on economy) and stable support of membership after referendum & accession. The main positive changes according to public opinion are possibilities to work abroad & reduced unemployment. The main negative change is rise of prices. Rise of prices was the main reason of skeptical attitudes towards euro introduction. On the other hand, according to Eurobarometer Lithuania, is one of the most euro-optimistic countries. Public opinion polls in EU show that attitudes towards Lithuania are positive. Adapted from the source document.
Partisan activity has been the main and the most important mode of institutionalized political participation (in addition to electoral participation) in the modern democracy. Even though mass party membership is a distinct feature of modern political system (although not necessarily democratic), since 1960-ies the decline of party membership is observed in many democratic countries. Lithuania is a typical example of post-communist region, where party membership is regarded as a specific elitist activity rather than an ordinary practice of political involvement. In the article, the attitudes of Lithuanians towards party membership are analyzed to answer the question if and why people are not keen to join political parties. Public attitudes are explored using the data of a representative public opinion survey carried out in 2005 and qualitative data of in-depth interviews with ordinary people collected in 2008. Using a mixed method research strategy, the article analyses the image of political parties in Lithuania, determines the potential of party membership and investigates the dominant reasons of avoiding partisan activity. In the first part of the article, the theories explaining partisan activity are presented. In addition to Civic voluntarism model and General incentives theory used by Paul Whiteley and Patrick Seyd to explain partisan activity, the broader theories explaining changes of political culture and transformation of party models are discussed. Moreover, the theoretical arguments for the exceptionalism of post-communist societies are presented. In the second part of the article, the analysis of the qualitative data is presented. The exploration of public attitudes reveals that partisan activity can be perceived in several different ways: as a specific occupation, as a civic self-expression, as belonging to power elite, as a privilege, as dependence, and as partiality. These images of parties held by people are related to their attitudes towards party membership. The reasons provided by the people of not joining political parties can be grouped into three groups: 1) the lack of necessary resources or personal characteristics (e.g. old age, low education, etc.); 2) critical attitudes towards political parties; 3) dislike of partisan activity because of indifference towards politics or individualism and appreciation of personal independence. In the third part, the quantitative data drawn from the public opinion survey is analysed. The data shows a surprisingly high potential of party membership in Lithuania: about 11 percent of all respondents and about 20 percent of respondents in the age group of 18-39 have an inclination to join a political party. However, 87 percent of individuals admit that they were not invited to join a political party during the last 5 years. This proves that Lithuanian political parties are not active in expanding their membership. The quantitative data approve the trends observed from the qualitative research. The two most popular reasons of not joining a party are the lack of resources or necessary characteristics (surprisingly, young age seems to be one of the most important of them) and an indifference towards politics. These two motives fit well into the Civic voluntarism model. Disappointment with politics or a negative attitude towards political parties in general, contrary to expectations, proved to be of secondary importance. The importance of individualist attitudes, i.e. the avoidance of commitment and appreciation of independence, unfortunately, could not be evaluated due to the lack of data. Summing up, the analysis of Lithuanian case suggests that low party membership in post-communist countries might be explained by low demand rather than low supply. In other words, we should look for the explanation of low enrolment in the process of recruitment of party members rather than in the attitudes of people. The research do not provide any evidence for a popular theory of "communist legacy" claiming that a "bad" image of parties inherited from communist regime accounts for the low party membership in post-communist societies. On the contrary, the data demonstrate rather positive attitudes towards partisan activity among Lithuanian population. Adapted from the source document.
Public space is realized as social & communicative arena, civic forum. The whole of individuals becomes a market of information consumers where arguments are presented & public opinion is formed. Conception of public space is related to alternation of state organization & communication models. While a modern state is being created, press forms a bourgeois public space. Radio & television invoked public discussions in the last century. Conception of public radio & television formed in Europe prolonged the tradition of public service. Community delegates to the state certain regulation functions which secure the right of a citizen to receive information & to participate in formation of public opinion. The monopoly of radio & television broadcast granted to democratic state has to guarantee pluralism & word freedom. Goals of public broadcaster are to expand civic society, stimulate activities of non-commercial & non-political groups, nourish national values. Main principles of an audiovisual public service are accessibility, pluralism, universality, independence. Citizens control (public services) & finance (subscription fee) public broadcasters. An antimonopolic wave formed in the eighth decade of previous century forced to liberalize the sector of European audiovisual communication. A new political consensus was achieved: only competition can secure pluralism. Traditional conception of public space varies. Market of audiovisual mass communication growing rapidly formed public space being regulated & activated in a special way. Efforts of generated communication (public relations) & competitive media invoke an opposite effect -- decreasing interest in public life. According to the opinion of radical democratic theory conception of public space formed by liberal democracy fell into desuetude, because community was split to heterogenous groups which don't have the vision of the common goal. Information community evolves in the direction of demassification & diversification; it will be supplied with products of media according to individual demand. The model of vertical communication dominating in public space is replaced by horizontal interactive communication. In such a way models of popular & qualitative communication become equally important. However the idea of public audiovisual service becomes more & more popular. It is believed that only it can guarantee functioning of democracy not allowing forming community of two speeds where not all of them will have an access to information resources. Adapted from the source document.
The article explores the effect of personal economic conditions & economic evaluations on the support for political regime. First, the relationship between different economic indicators & the support for democracy is examined using public opinion survey data. Further, the qualitative data are used to analyze the impact of socio-economic status on the regime support of an individual. Finally, the article explores how the evaluations of the national economic situation are formed. The qualitative research was carried out in July 2004 in four Lithuanian districts: Vilnius, Joni(eth)kis, Klaipeda & Taurage. Vilnius & Klaipeda were selected as the most prosperous regions, & Joni(eth)kis & Taurage were selected as the poorest regions of Lithuania. During the research, 40 in-depth interviews were made. The respondents were selected using the criteria of age, education & profession. The quantitative data are drawn from the 2001 Baltic Barometer survey. The results of the research reveal that support for democracy is mostly influenced by the evaluation of the national economic situation. The dissatisfaction with the economic performance of the political system, however, is only weakly related with the personal economic situation of an individual. Deprivation appears to be the strongest objective economic factor of political support. The other factors influencing the formation of the negative assessment of the economic development of Lithuania includes the economic situation of the region & neighborhood & the opinion of experts. The decisive criterion conditioning the attitudes toward the current economic situation in Lithuania is the comparison of the current life quality with that of Soviet times. Adapted from the source document.
Aim of the article is to explore whether existing possibilities to join online political discussions have any politicizing effect on social networks. Politicizing effect is defined both in quantitative & qualitative terms. Internet may enlarge existing networks by providing opportunities to connect to new people & to engage with them in political conversations. Internet may also provide new experiences of political talk, assuming that offline political conversations tend to avoid disagreement, while online communication is better adapted to expression of divergent opinions & discussions. Yet such potential of the Internet to expose people to cross-cutting conversation depends on the motivations of its users. To explore the actual effect of the Internet on politicization of social networks data of representative survey of Lithuanian population is analyzed. Adapted from the source document.
The article is based on an idea that there are four different modes of understanding reality -- practice, science, art and mysticism. Political liberalism demands separation of public and private beliefs. However, mystical understanding of reality is not a system of propositions and beliefs. This is why one can speak of a conflict between liberalism and mystical understanding of reality. Political liberalism imposes a certain understanding of reality on believers. Liberals propose to remove religious convictions from public life and not to treat them as a basis of politics. They forget that mystics have the biggest trouble namely with convictions. To turn the reality of God into words for them is always the hardest task. Mystics find God before words, concepts and discourses. Liberals reduce religion to convictions and demand from mystics to comprehend that, which in their opinion is not comprehensible. There is a tension between liberalism and people who have mystical experiences. Liberals narrow down religious experience to convictions. However, mystical experience is a much broader subject. Behind it stands an understanding of world that has its own standards of reality. Adapted from the source document.
In comparative studies of transitional justice in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe, Lithuania is ranked among the countries which have taken the strictest lustration measures. In contrast, a very negative perception of the issue dominates the Lithuanian public discourse. Lustration is often described as impotent or failed in the media. Despite its high political importance, there has been no systemic analysis evaluating the results of Lithuania's lustration policy (LLP). This article aims at analyzing the effectiveness of LLP. The main object of this article is the LLP which consists of three sets of laws: 1998 laws aimed at restricting the former KGB employees, 1999 law aimed at KGB's secret collaborators, and 2010 law allowing publishing remaining KGB documents. This article corresponds with the last wave of transitional justice studies, in which the results and/or impact of transitional justice measures is evaluated. The findings of this article suggest a rather positive evaluation of LLP, further contradicting the opinion dominant in the local media. This could encourage future studies to explore the reasons of this inconsistency. Adapted from the source document.
There are two important differences in the outcomes of postsocialist transformation of the Baltic countries: (1) Due to the inclusive citizenship laws the liberal democracy in Lithuania is more consolidated than in other Baltic countries. (2) However, in the economy Estonia has established reputation of "a shining star from the Baltics," while Lithuania during first decade of market transition acquired the reputation of a pupil that although made the homework asked by the international institutions, but always a bit too late & never with excellent marks. While the explanation of the first difference is relatively uncontroversial, the opinions clash around the explanation of the differences in the economic performance. The article analyzes how can the reemergence of the difference between Baltic South & North be explained after the levels of socio-economic development between Baltic states had converged during the Soviet time? Did better initial economic conditions, peculiarities in the political process (eg., exclusion of significant part of non-ethnical Estonian population that could be potential electorate for postcommunist party like the Lithuanian "Labourists"), Protestant cultural legacy, better public relation work -- or what? -- make Estonia "a shining star from the Baltics"? The paper closes with the discussion of the further difficulties of the culturalist explanation (including the Latvian riddle again) & possible solutions, & presents some proposals of further research relevant for the progress in the testing of conflicting explanations. Adapted from the source document.
Influence the television enjoys over the political processes, creating a community opinion, should be interconnected with its distribution, attainability & communicational suggestion. Audiovisual media took back the intonations of spoken language to the mass communication. Radio created a new talk, the so-called stylistic dualism, when a huge audience is addressed in a personal & intimate way. Radio has created the new forms of dialogue, audience being affected to an anonymous voice, created new relationship between the politicians & the community. Regular appeals of politics leaders through the radio to the nation became a usual phenomenon of political life. Simplicity & honesty of speech became important components of a successful political communication. Television set forth the tune of intimacy, chamberness formulated by radio. The context of view, text & sound let transmit information through all channels of public communication. Anonymous radio voice became the face of a show, which performs a ritualistic teller's role in television. History of the television development can be divided into two phases -- paleo- & neo-television. Clear gradation of genres is characteristic to the first phases, performance is distinguished from documentary, television & audience are tied by vertical hierarchic connections. Fragmentarity, convergence of genres, vanishing barriers between documentary & performance are characteristic to the conception of neo-television. Interests of the audience are taken into account much more, political, civil & private spheres come closer. Representatives of each of them perform specific roles in television: politicians make decisions (engaged word), citizens force to make decisions (expert word), & the ordinary people observe (vox populi). The approach of political & civil sphere prove the growing role of "a man from the street," naivety & familiarity is demonstrated by politicians. Openness, unforced refusal of privacy, become an important part of political life. Deflection from classical debates (word direction) to talk shows (performance of conflict) & reality shows (performance of trueness) show the alternation of dialogue genres of television. Television creates a new democracy of performance, where facts are replaced by emotions, reflection -- by action, ideas -- by personalities. Television offers its own rules of democratic discourse, politicians & citizens are motivated to become participants of this communication performance. Adapted from the source document.
