<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This article focuses on social democratic parties in the Baltic states. The evolution of the democratic left in these countries deviates from more researched cases of social democratic parties in the Visegrád countries. Although the Lithuanian Social Democratic party (LSDP) had been developing in a similar way to its counterparts in Hungary, Poland and Czechia, its efforts to rebound after a crushing defeat in the 2016 parliamentary elections have proved to be far more successful. Meanwhile, Estonian and Latvian Social Democrats from the outset had to compete under the prevalence of right-wing parties in highly heterogenous societies. However, despite similar initial conditions, their eventual trajectories crucially diverged. Hence, a research puzzle is double: how to explain LSDP’s deviation from similar Visegrád cases, and what are the main factors that led to the differentiation of Estonian and Latvian social democratic parties? While the current research literature tends to emphasise structural and external causes, this paper applies an organisational approach to explain the different fortunes of the democratic left in the Baltic countries as well as other East-Central European states.</p></abstract>

This article focuses on social democratic parties in the Baltic states. The evolution of the democratic left in these countries deviates from more researched cases of social democratic parties in the Visegrád countries. Although the Lithuanian Social Democratic party (LSDP) had been developing in a similar way to its counterparts in Hungary, Poland and Czechia, its efforts to rebound after a crushing defeat in the 2016 parliamentary elections have proved to be far more successful. Meanwhile, Estonian and Latvian Social Democrats from the outset had to compete under the prevalence of right-wing parties in highly heterogenous societies. However, despite similar initial conditions, their eventual trajectories crucially diverged. Hence, a research puzzle is double: how to explain LSDP’s deviation from similar Visegrád cases, and what are the main factors that led to the differentiation of Estonian and Latvian social democratic parties? While the current research literature tends to emphasise structural and external causes, this paper applies an organisational approach to explain the different fortunes of the democratic left in the Baltic countries as well as other East-Central European states.

Trajectories of social democracy in the Baltic countries: choices and constraints

Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Faculty of Philosophy

Politics in Central Europe

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This article focuses on social democratic parties in the Baltic states. The evolution of the democratic left in these countries deviates from more researched...

Trajectories of social democracy in the Baltic countries: choices and constraints

Published Online: Mar 31, 2020

Page range: 211 - 230

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pce-2020-0010

Keywords
Baltic states, social democratic parties, party presidentialisation

© 2020 Liutauras Gudžinskas, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Trajectories of social democracy in the Baltic countries: choices and constraints

Published Online: Mar 31, 2020

Page range: 211 - 230

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pce-2020-0010

KeywordsBaltic states, social democratic parties, party presidentialisation

© 2020 Liutauras Gudžinskas, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Baltic states, social democratic parties, party presidentialisation