A scholarly journal from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Issue 2018:4 Theme Academic Freedom under Threat Download.
Issue 2019:1 Power in Disguise. Looking for back issues of Baltic Worlds? Download as PDF here.
Independent scientific and professional organizations began to suffer especially after the introduction of the so-called law on “foreign agents”. Ideological control over science, together with espionage, begins to directly influence the state of academic rights and freedoms. The topic of human rights has almost disappeared from teaching, and research in the field of queer sociology is in fact banned. However, the most vulnerable are those who either teach or demand respect for human rights at the university, and then the loss of employment is the result of a direct ideological confrontation with the rector, such as for the author of this text.
In order to silence dissident voices within Belarusian higher education, students with uncomfortable political views are often expelled. International critique has resulted in a decrease in the number of expulsions, but the repression continues. The university administration merely has changed methods and nowadays focuses on the students with a capacity to lead others.
Democratic backsliding has been an abiding and pervasive concern across the post-communist region for almost a decade. Data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset corroborate this phenomenon and show that one of the contributors to this decline is a narrowing of freedom for academic and cultural expression.While not being the sole driver of this recent backsliding trend, the opportunity for open academic and cultural exchange does remain an important principle of basic electoral democracy.
On the 6th of May this year, Baltic Worlds arranged a seminar at CBEES on the topic of the shrinking space for academic freedom. Updated reports from Poland and Hungary was followed by a presentation of the autocratic learning process in Eurasia. Finally there were suggestions on how protect academic freedom and work for international scholarly solidarity.
In my contribution I would like to provide an assessment of what has happened over the past two years in Hungary, how academics have been reacting, and finish with a few thoughts regarding academia in that country and beyond. My focus should and will be on the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Rather than moving towards arguments or ideological standpoints, the politics in Ukraine has moved farther towards selling emotions, stories and images. This time it was the politics of mediatised emotion on steroids. Is this simply a new politics that can be used in a populist and non-populist ways, or for progressive as much as reactionary causes? It may look like it is a neutral tool but I would still argue that this kind of politics substitutes political mobilisation with political immersion by submerging the audience into a story, an emotional environment, an experience.
On March 30, Zuzana Čaputová defeated Maroš Šefčovič in the second round of the Slovak presidential election. It looks like an important victory for those who want a “European” and socially liberal Slovakia - regardless of the fact that the country is a parliamentary republic with limited powers for the president. But the presidential race has also revealed more troubling aspects of Slovak politics, and exposed deep divisions within the Slovak society.
The distinguishing feature of the Kaliningrad region is the fact that it is an exclave, part of but separated from Russia by two countries, Poland/Belarus or Lithuania/Latvia, though with access across the Baltic Sea (thus strictly speaking a semi-exclave). It is Russia’s only exclave and is the biggest in Europe. Seen from inside it is an enclave (or a semi-enclave).
Immediate reactions to the election results focused largely on the triumph of EKRE which nearly tripled its number of mandates. EKRE holding nearly a fifth of the Riigikogu seats ushers in a new era in Estonian politics where the populist far-right is a force to be reckoned with.
Regardless of what shape the future government will take, there is no doubt that it will remain under the control of Vlad Plahotniuc and Igor Dodon. This in turn means further deterioration of Moldova's relations with its Western partners, lack of structural reforms and deepening social collapse.
There is a significant discrepancy between the political potential of the EU and its actual position and role in the future development of Europe. In practice, the member states have maintained their power monopoly in the most essential policy areas.
Over 40 researchers representing countries spanning from Ukraine to the United States and from Sweden to Serbia gathered in Prague to explore the changing roles of rural and urban cultural heritages in post-socialist countries.
Usually, this triennial takes place in Lithuania, as it has since its foundation in the year 1979. But now, due to the celebration of the centennial of the restored three Baltic states, Kestutis Kuizinas, the leader of the Contemporary Art Centre, decided to suggest that they work collaboratively. Thematically, the 13th Baltic Triennial’s three-part format also shaped the way it was realized.
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.