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The article is dedicated to the discussion about the notions of the 'political system' and 'political regime' in the fields of its meanings as autonomous analytical constructions. The main arguments are that the 'political system' describes a stable and normal political process and determinate interrelations between power structures and civil society institutions as a complex sociopolitical unity. On the other hand, concept of 'political regime' stresses dynamic aspects of the government activity as a realization of the basic political functions. Pointing to the fact that a political system explains events and relations in the modern democratic context and a regime -- its peculiarities in the process of decision-making, the authors share attention to specific negative aspects of the separate interpretation and recognition of the various forms in the national politics spheres. All these conditions may sharp influence over the quality of the authority decisions, feedback among political institutions as a civic interests representatives etc. And otherwise, this implies that the political systems and political regimes realize an isomorphic similarity for taking evasive action between them. Adapted from the source document.

Straipsnyje keliami du tarpusavyje susije klausimai. Pirma, kokia yra Baltijos valstybiu vieta Rusijos saugumo vaizdiniuose. Antra, kaip Balti-jos valstybes susidoroja su neigiamu Rusijos suvokimu. Siame straipsnyje teigiama, kad Rusijos ir triju Baltijos valstybiu abipusio reprezentavimo ir saveikos problemas geriausiai galima suprasti atskleidziant siu valstybiu erdves suvokima, kuris visu pirma formuoja poziuri i artimiausia aplinka, taigi ir savo kaimynus. Sis suvokimas, kylantis ir is istoriniu reprezentaci-ju, pagrindzia ir pateikia issamu, objektyvizuota saves ir 'kito' suvokima. Taigi siekiama parodyti, kaip itemptus ir nepasitikejimo kupinus Rusijos ir triju Baltijos valstybiu santykius veikia susiduriantys ir konfliktuojantys savo vietos tarptautineje politikoje apibudinimai ir is ju kylantys veiksmai. Si ide-ja straipsnyje atskleidziama, pirma, ispletojant teorines prielaidas, kad yra teritorijos, tapatybes ir sienu rysys, ir is to kylancius kaimynystes analizes principus, antra, parodant, kaip Rusija ir trys Baltijos valstybes savo uzsie-nio politika isreiskia, formuluoja ir dar karta itvirtina savo erdvini tapatybini pasaulevaizdi. Isvadose parodoma, kaip skirtingu ir vienas kita neutralizuoti bandanciu pasaulevaizdziu susidurimas formuoja dvisales The article raises two interconnected questions: first, what is the place of three Baltic States in Russia's security image, and second, how Baltic States cope with their own negative perception of Russia. The proposed idea is that the problems of mutual representation and interaction can be understood analysing the conceptualisations of space, which influences the way in which the closest environment, including the neighbours, is approached. This representation, together with historical narratives, formulates and justifies the comprehensive, consistent, and objectivised self and the other. Thus, the goal is to show how the tense relations between Russia and Baltic States, full of mistrust, can be explained as a clash between two conflicting geo-spatial views. This idea is developed, first, by presenting the theoretical assumptions on the relation among territory, identity, and borders and the principles of the neighbourhood analysis, and second, by demonstrating how the spatial representation by Russia and Baltic States is formulated and supported in their spatial identity and foreign policy practices. In the conclusions, the answer is given as to how this clash between the two different and competing understandings is reflected in the bilateral interactions and how these insights allow contributing to the analysis of the foreign policy of the states. Adapted from the source document.

The article explores positivism-postpositivism debate in social sciences that has been lasting already for many years. The author does not suppose this debate will end soon since it raises fundamental questions concerning the aims, tasks and methods of social sciences. Though representatives of these sciences differ significantly in views on these questions, the most of them and, in particular, evident majority of representatives of political science virtually holds positivist views. Such questions, which may be called conceptual, are essentially disputable, so they cannot be resolved by any empirical research. When examining positivism-postpositivism debate the author singles out, paying tribute to tradition, three aspects of debate: (1) ontological, (2) epistemological, and (3) methodological. Yet he presents the arguments to support his claim that because of its antimetaphysical character positivism can have no ontology at all. Therefore an ontological dispute between positivists and postpositivists is simply impossible. Postpositivists, in discussing epistemological questions, would be inclined to reject positivist viewpoint that our statements and theories about social life can be true (though according to modern positivists, we can never know it for sure). They also would reject the positivist distinction between facts and values, which likewise can be considered as epistemological. But the most serious dispute that is taking place in social sciences concerns methodological questions. The author, in analyzing it, pays most attention to two most influential forms of postpositivism, namely to critical theory and postmodernism. Having discussed genealogy and deconstruction which, though with serious reservations, may be considered as postpositivist methods, the author claims that postpositivism lacks the main part of methodology, i.e. rules of accepting scientific statements and theories. And that is why postpositivism cannot win the methodological debate over positivism which has such rules. Adapted from the source document.

The main task of this article is the conceptualization of post-communism as a reflexive exploration of the features of ideological discourses. The article also seeks to offer the new definition of ideology as the most common form of the political. Post-communism is shown to be a complex process that fits uneasily into pre-given categories. Post-communism is the hybrid condition of decolonization, modernization and post-modernization. The article insists on the importance of discourses of ideological representations of reality in defining post-communism. The article also argues that the articulation of relationship between post-communism and post-colonialism offers a better understanding of the ambiguous condition of post-communism. Adapted from the source document.

In this article, a few theoretical aspects of citizens' political sophistication are analyzed: contextual concepts that are used, different conceptions of political sophistication, variables used in the research and factors implementing political sophistication. Most of the academic works on political sophistication come from Western countries, therefore the assumptions used by foreign scholars are applied in the case of Lithuania. Political sophistication is understood as political knowledge held by an individual as well as his/her interest in politics. In the empirical part of this article, the results of the 2008 representative survey data statistical analysis are presented: Lithuanian citizens' political sophistication index and factors that implement the level of political sophistication. One can conclude that the most influential factor that causes the existing level of political sophistication is citizens' age. Relatively more political sophisticated are older, better educated citizens who discuss political issues with others more frequently, use more information sources (radio, Internet, press, TV news) and gain comparatively higher income. Adapted from the source document.

This article aims at discussing methods of analysis and understanding of the "imperial discourse" in modern investigations of Russian culture. Having introduced Michel Foucault's and Edward Said's basic concepts that have influenced postcolonial studies and researches of Russian culture, the author proceeds to the works of Ewa Thompson, Alexander Etkind, Susan Layton, Andrei Zorin, Richard Wortman and Harsha Ram. The concept of imperial discourse in their works describes the relationship between the culture and literary text to specific historical context defined as imperial. The relationship between the text and imperial context is ambiguous and is demonstrated on different levels. This relationship is revealed in investigations of the ceremonies of the Russian imperial court, literary representations, functioning of ideological symbols, as well as the genre poetics and the lyrical subject's specifics. General feature of these investigations of Russian culture and literature is that rather than analyzing repressive aspects of imperial discourse (except Ewa Thompson), the authors focus on its constructive aspects that reveal new meanings of text and specify formation of cultural identity of Russian writers. Adapted from the source document.

Political corruption in Japan is a very important issue. According to the Global Corruption Barometer 2009 survey Japanese perceived political parties, public officials and civil servants to be the institutions which are the most affected by corruption. In addition, governmental measures against corruption are regarded to be ineffective and inadequate to the real situation. Japanese have keen concern toward Japanese political parties, intransparent activity of politicians and preventive measures taken by government. The purpose of this research is to examine political corruption phenomena in contemporary Japanese politics. Research questions are what are the structure, scale, and causes of political corruption in Japan during 2001-2009. For answering to these research questions first of all it is discussed the concept and definition of political corruption itself. Article overviews previous political corruption studies in Japan from the time of Second World War to the recent times, including the report of the Transparency International National Integrity System. In third chapter of article the scale, the varieties and the main practitioners of political corruption in Japan are to be analyzed. It reveals the biggest political corruption scandals in Japanese politics in given time-period. Last chapter focuses on the explanation of political corruption mechanism in Japan and in particular relationship with clientelism practises. Combination of primary and secondary sources led me to make the following conclusions on the main political corruption tendencies in Japan during 2001-2009. First, the Asahi Shimbun front page content analysis indicates that 2002 and 2007 are special years in the context of corruption studies because in those years published the largest number of political corruption articles and the biggest number of the new themes on the political corruption issue revealed. Second, the common point of the three most significant political corruption scandals during 2001-2009 is that all of them have the relationship with political finance issue and in particular a suspicion on the violation of the PFRL. This finding reaffirms the NIS statement that political finance is one of the top priority issues in Japanese corruption scheme. Third, illegal political donation and influence peddling are the most frequent types of corruption in Japan during the period of 2001-2009. Fourth, main practitioners of political corruption in Japan were the LDP members from the House of Representatives. In addition, in as many as nine cases the Diet member secretaries were involved in political corruption scandals. The Diet member secretaries play an important role in political corruption scheme because they are often responsible for the political fund management. Fifth, the most vulnerable institution to political corruption seems to be Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Ministry of Construction. Finally, article concludes that political corruption in Japan, to some extent, could be explained through the analysis of political clientelism. Adapted from the source document.

Implementation of government commitments is one of the most relevant issues of public policy studies. A gap between electoral pledges, government priorities and their practical execution brought disappointment in many democratic countries and attracted significant attention from public policy researchers. This article elaborates a theoretical framework and sets several hypotheses for analysing the process of implementing performance priorities of the Lithuanian government and achieving their results. It argues that public policy decisions can be best explained by the interaction of advocacy coalitions in different policy subsystems. A public policy research agenda focused on the analysis of government commitments can be also applied to assessing how specific political priorities or other policy decisions are carried out in Lithuania and other democratic states, as well as to explaining successes and failures of their implementation process. Causal process tracing can be employed for the within-case and between-case analysis of policy studies. Theoretically developed and empirically rich policy studies following this research agenda would provide interesting insights on policy implementation to researchers, politicians, civil servants, various policy stakeholders, and even citizens. Adapted from the source document.

Straipsnio tikslas yra isnagrineti Lietuvos ziniasklaidos auditorijos fragmentacija rinkimu kampanijos metu ir nustatyti, kurie kanalai labiausiai gali susieti auditorija tarpusavyje. Straipsnyje apzvelgiama fragmentacijos reiksme demokratijai ir jos tyrimuose vartojamos savokos, pristatomi empirinio tyrimo poziuriai, besiremiantys auditorijos sutapimo analize. Remiantis reprezentatyvios apklausos duomenimis ir pristatytais poziuriais, analizuo-jama Lietuvos ziniasklaidos auditorijos fragmentacija. Kadangi nustatytas gana didelis skirtingu kanalu susiklojimas, straipsnyje daroma isvada, kad Lietuvos ziniasklaidos auditorija kol kas nera labai fragmentiska. Taciau palyginimas su ankstesniu metu duomenimis rodo tam tikrus fragmentacijos didejimo polinkius. Labiausiai Lietuvos ziniasklaidos auditorija susiejantis kanalas yra televizija, taciau vis didesne svarba igyja ir populiarus interneto portalai The aim of the article is to analyse the extent of media audience fragmentation in Lithuania during the 2012 Parliament election campaign and to define which media channels are best able to unify the audience. The article reviews the significance of fragmentation in terms of democracy and concepts used in its analysis, and presents approaches for its empirical study, based on audience duplication. On the basis of this approach and data from a representative survey, the fragmentation of Lithuanian media audience is analysed. Since the analysis shows a considerable overlap of audience of different media outlets, the main conclusion is made that the Lithuanian media audience is not (yet) fragmented. The media that unites the biggest share of the audience is television, although popular internet portals are also becoming very important. Adapted from the source document.

This article analyses main public management doctrines (traditional administration, NPM and post-NPM), assesses the doctrinal basis of public management reforms in the 2004-2010 period, provides suggestions concerning principles, directions and process of future public management reforms in Lithuania. Despite different political views and terms of various Governments, important decisions of public management reforms were based on the party logic, whose purpose is to strengthen political authority of the government in office. The implementation of the 'bureaucratic' public administration strategy, whose content was informed by the ideas of post-NPM, was initially unsuccessful because of limited political ownership and the legalistic approach. The XV Lithuanian Government undertook wide public management reforms based on the managerial doctrine with prevailing NPM characteristics. A mix of the party logic and the NPM doctrine could be contradictory and risky in Central and Eastern European countries. Also, the NPM has not yielded good results in continental Europe, its solutions do not match Lithuania's problems and there is no solid empirical evidence about its effectiveness in Lithuania. Therefore, its application should be limited and selective during Lithuania's public management reforms. Post-NPM is the best doctrine for future public management reforms, whose implementation in Lithuania should be supported by broader political consensus, better inter-institutional cooperation and a more managerial implementation approach. Adapted from the source document.

This article presents macro-level study of voting in Lithuania's local elections, with emphasis on changing electoral support for the incumbent parties. Presented statistical analysis of vote change in two periods between municipal elections (year 1997-2000 and 2002-2007) aims to explain the success (and failure) of dominant parties in national government and municipal councils (two separate cases). Article is mainly oriented into the search of economic voting, but hypotheses related to other, political-institutional factors are also tested. It is discovered that dynamics of unemployment change helps to explain vote change for the party that is dominant in the municipal council, but it is not important when state of economy is worsening. The dominant party in the national government is unanimously punished when unemployment is rising, but when the state of economy is improving, average vote change for such party is not outstanding. The dispersion of vote change in both cases (when dependent variable is vote change for the dominant party in the national government) is better explained by the political-institutional variables (firstly, turnout change). Adapted from the source document.

Among the so-called post-industrial countries Japan is exceptional with regard to immigration policy. Despite the supply of foreigners who would like to live and work in Japan, as well as the demand for their labour, the government succeeds to maintain its restrictive policy and construct a discourse which conceals the nature of labour migration to Japan. Based on academic literature on migration to Japan, as well as on qualitative research in Tokyo, conducted during the two-month-long fieldwork, this paper argues that the patterns in which the official discourse and the legal framework conceals labour migration push foreigners to craft their identities accordingly, and engage in "performative" migration, which, in turn, is met with suspicion from the government. Adapted from the source document.

Siame straipsnyje nagrinejama Lietuvos Vyriausybes istaigu ir istaigu prie ministeriju vadovu kaita ir politizacija 1990-2012 m. Nors de jure ir de facto vadovu politizacija sioje istaigu grupeje nera didele, ji skiriasi - priklauso nuo atitinkamu laikotarpiu ir istaigu tipu. Mazejant strukturinei agenturu vadovu pareigybiu politizacijai, Lietuvoje didejo faktine vadovu politizacija ir atvirksciai. Del ju pareigybiu specifikos Vyriausybes istaigu, kurios institucineje sandaroje veikia arciau Vyriausybes centro, vadovai labiau politizuoti nei istaigu prie ministeriju vadovai. Straipsnyje teigiama, kad siu agenturu vadovu kaita geriausiai paaiskina esminiai valdanciosios daugumos ir Lietuvos Vyriausybiu pokyciai, o politizacija - politiniu partiju valdymo trukme ir ju tinklai, taip pat politinis valdymo sriciu jautrumas This article analyses the change and politicisation of the senior levels of management in the Lithuanian government agencies and agencies under the ministries in the period 1990-2012. This research indicated that de facto politicisation of the Lithuanian agencies is relatively small with only 19.1% of all agency heads engaged in party networks. The turnover of agency managers is best explained by alterations of ruling majorities and governments, taking into account more the intensive turnover of agency managers during the Lithuanian governments controlled by the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party. Politicisation of the agency managers could be explained in terms of 'push' factors (politicisation is associated with party entrenchment in power and density of the party networks) and 'pull' factors (party patronage is exercised more frequently over more politically salient areas of public services). Changes in de jure politicisation of the higher civil service depended on structural and civil service reforms. Our analysis also revealed some differences in the pattern of politicisation according to the Lithuanian political parties: if the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party de facto appoints politically affiliated managers to career positions in the Lithuanian higher civil service, the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Christian Democrats) frequently adopts the structural form of politicisation through government-wide organisational or civil service reforms. Adapted from the source document.

Straipsnio tikslas yra naujai pazvelgti i politines laisves principo mo-dernioje demokratijoje problema, iskylancia pilieciu konformizmo ir abejin-gumo viesajam gyvenimui pavidalu. Musu siulomas analitinis budas - tai laisves problema suvokti ir nagrineti moderniuju laiku mastytoju adaptuotu klasikines drasos dorybes aspektu. Viesojo gyvenimo nuosmukio demokrati-joje aiskinimai paprastai susitelkia i politiniu instituciju, atstovavimo mecha-nizmu arba pilietines visuomenes ugdymo klausimus, taciau retai reiksminga demesi skiria pilieciu kasdieniu paprociu ir dorybiu veiksniui. Nematant de-mokratijos kaip unikalaus, socialines lygybes idealu gristo paprociu tinklo, sunku deramai ivertinti reiksmingus sios santvarkos priestaravimus politi-nes laisves principui, ir del to isvados apie konformizmo reiskinio priezastis buna negalutines. Drasos dorybe yra patogus analitinis irankis, leidziantis taikliai ir spalvingai pamatyti demokratijai budingu etiniu prielaidu santyki su politines laisves principa palaikanciomis prielaidomis. Musu straipsnyje pasitelktas ziurejimo i laisves problema demokratineje santvarkoje budas lei-dzia tiketis nestandartiniu isvadu apie konformizmo reiskinio priezastis The purpose of this article is to offer a new approach to the issue of conformism and political apathy in modern democratic societies, which indicates an implicit tension between democracy as a political form and the principle of political liberty. What we attempt to do in the article is to bring the issue onto the grounds of classical and modern ethics by introducing the virtue of courage as an analytical concept. The article argues that the virtue of courage and the morals it implicates are the key to understanding how democratic ethics interferes with the ones sustaining an active civic life and liberty, a process which gives rise to the problem of conformism. Such approach allows us to view and interpret the issue of liberty in a democracy not only as a technical issue of governance or representation, but also as a worrying indication of a decline of the political significance of liberty itself. Adapted from the source document.