Kjetil Duvold

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Associate) at Dalarna University

The Baltic presidents have in common that they are supposed to embody the ‘nation’ and provide an image of their countries abroad. But can the president embody the people if ‘the people’ itself is divided? In this article, we will focus on public trust in the presidency between the majority and minority population in the Baltic states. Drawing on p...

The book is the first systematic and comparative effort to capture political culture in the Baltic countries, including political orientation and support for democracy. Revolving around public opinion data from the 1990s and onwards, including two recent surveys commissioned by the authors, the book takes stock of the political climate prevailing i...

Drawing on a unique and recent cross-national public opinion survey, the article examines the determinants of regime support and retrospective evaluation of the Soviet era in the Baltic states. The analytical framework encompasses three dimensions: political-ideological nostalgia, performance-driven nostalgia and nationality-driven nostalgia. The a...

Much of the political science literature suggests that a cohesive political community is advantageous-if not a precondition-for a stable democracy. Forging a cohesive community is obviously a more complex matter in a multi-ethnic setting. This article will consider the prospects of building political communities in the Baltic countries-three countr...

Population surveys onEstonia, Latvia and Lithuania; follow-up studies to the New Baltic Barometer (1992-2004).

The Baltic presidents have in common that they are supposed to embody the 'nation' and to provide an image of their countries abroad. But can the president embody the people if "the people" itself is divided? In this paper, we will focus on public trust in the presidency between the majority and minority population in the Baltic states. Drawing on...

While much of this book is about mass attitudes, values and identities, Chap. 3 is also concerned with political behaviour: how and to what extent does political culture translate into support for various party alternatives? The first section is a reflection on the formation and configuration of parties and cleavages in the aftermath of the Soviet...

This chapter focuses on the strained and complex relationship between the Baltic states and Russia, not least in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea and the wider conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Much of the analysis centres on Latvia in particular—since the country was singled out for a special ‘post-Crimea’ survey. The spotlight is on public su...

This chapter is about nation building under exceptional circumstances. Covering four different but related topics, the inquiry begins by exploring the thickness of ethnic identity markers. Second, it focuses on language laws, citizenship legislation and naturalisation procedures, with an emphasis on non-citizens. Third, it revolves around conflict...

Chapter 4 presents an analysis of how Baltic people evaluate the performance of their respective political systems. The focus is thus on the evaluative dimension of political culture: do people get what they expect from their governments; and if not, what are the implications for system support and democratic stability in the region? It starts with...

The ‘return to Europe’ was on the Baltic agenda early on, and this chapter applies a longitudinal perspective. The surveys used in this book give us important information about the trajectories of the three Baltic countries during the formative years leading up to European Union (EU) accession and beyond. They include questions tapping attitudes to...

“Socialism” became largely discredited all over Central and Eastern Europe with the collapse of communism, but perhaps more so in the Baltic countries. The three Baltic countries have in common a half-century long history as Soviet republics, but they differ from the rest of the Soviet Union in important respects. Not only because they experienced...

In 2004 Lithuania marked the end of an impressive success story as the country achieved its key foreign political objectives by joining the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The simultaneous processes of post-communist state/nation-building and adaptation to the acquis communautaire have been enormously influent...

‘How would I know when a democracy was consolidated?’ ponders Philippe C. Schmitter (2009), concluding that the answer is in fact simple: ‘As soon as your politics becomes boring, your democracy is consolidated. As soon as you can predict reasonably well who is going to win and what kinds of subjects are going to be on the agenda, your democracy is...