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This paper discusses contemporary societal roles of German in the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania). Speaker and learner statistics and a summary of sociolinguistic research (Linguistic Landscapes, language learning motivation, language policies, international roles of languages) suggest that German has by far fewer speakers and functions than the national languages, English, and Russian, and it is not a dominant language in the contemporary Baltics anymore. However, German is ahead of 'any other language' in terms of users and societal roles as a frequent language in education, of economic relations, as a historical lingua franca, and a language of traditional and new minorities. Highly diverse groups of users and language policy actors form a 'coalition of interested parties' which creates niches which guarantee German a frequent use. In the light of the abundance of its functions, the paper suggests the concept 'additional language of society' for a variety such as German in the Baltics - since there seems to be no adequate alternative labelling which would do justice to all societal roles. The paper argues that this concept may also be used for languages in similar societal situations and, not least, be useful in language marketing and the promotion of multilingualism.

Soviet higher education had a distinctive institutional landscape. It combined two institutional types in a uniform model that embedded higher education in the national economy. This paper focuses on the post-Soviet system-level changes in the institutional landscape in all 15 countries of the former USSR. It shows that over last three decades the Soviet two-type institutional model evolved into a three-type model, with the specialized university as a new institutional type. Highlighting the instruments of horizontal and vertical differentiation for each country, the paper explains how structural reforms and market forces led to the rise of the university/multiversity form of institution, and the strengthening of vertical stratification at system level. The comparative analysis shows that there have been different patterns of transformation in the 15 countries, shaped by unique combinations of structural reforms and marketization policies, with certain countries having made more distinctive steps away from the Soviet institutional model. There are now 15 formally different systems of higher education which poses further questions for comparative analysis.

Online courses have become an increasingly attractive format for delivering teacher training. However, the low retention rates are a critical and still unsolved issue. This paper presents the results of a randomized controlled trial aimed at testing the impact of a personalized support model on teachers' retention in online training courses. The support consisted of a package of nine messages triggered by teachers' characteristics and their specific (in)actions on the course platform. The study involved 3,777 lower-secondary education professional and student teachers from nine European Union Member States and Turkey, who were invited to participate in four new online courses in school year 2018/2019. The experimental estimates show that the offered support increased course completion by 10 percentage points among professional teachers in EU Member States, while it had no effects among student teachers nor in Turkey. Implications for online teacher training providers--such as the importance of reaching out to participants with poor online training experience and who do not start the courses in time--are discussed.

Building on the growing literature on the varying degrees and dimensions of prisoner governance across prison systems, this paper aims to understand how such governance, and reforms to reduce its informal influences, shape prisoner experiences in Estonia and Lithuania. Estonia has limited the influence of prisoner governance through the creation of a cell-based prison system, while Lithuania has maintained penal colonies in which prisoners largely self-govern. Utilizing a metaphor approach to the pains of imprisonment, we offer the concept of an imposition gradient to capture variation in the experience of the weight and tightness produced by both prison authorities and prisoners themselves across our cases. The paper makes three contributions: first, it aims to explicitly assess the relationship between varieties of prisoner governance and penal subjectivities. Second, it rethinks the relatively static metaphors of weight and tightness as fluid and dynamic experiences shaped by the degrees of prisoner governance present within prison systems and particular spaces of particular prisons. Third, the paper speaks to recent appeals to develop comparative research into varieties of imprisonment regimes, deepening comparative theories of prison order across the Global North and South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of relative endowments of skilled labour and physical capital on the location choices of multinational firms (MNEs). We demonstrate potential methodological issues and possible solutions related to the identification of vertical MNE activity when using aggregate country-level data. To support our analysis, we introduce data matching and various assumptions with respect to the degree of profit shifting activities of MNEs that we apply to study unilateral inward foreign direct investment (FDI) across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Our choice of data is motivated by various legislation gaps, taxation specificities, and growing equity stocks in sectors related to profit shifting in the aforementioned economies. Ultimately, we highlight the importance of international tax differences and the growing discrepancy between real and reported cross-country FDI data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to provide a summary of the key outcomes and reflections related to the theme issue question, "Smart tourism: what developments and issues are important to the Baltic states?" Design/methodology/approach: This study utilizes a descriptive approach to summarize the key outcomes of the theme issue. The theme issue focuses on the problems, trends and developments of smart tourism in the Baltic states, namely, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Findings: The papers in the theme issue explore the emerging concept of smart tourism and the challenges associated with its implementation at the destination level. They also provide updated data on the adoption of smart tourism and aim to engage academics and industry professionals to identify future developments. Originality/value: This theme issue provides unique perspectives from a variety of stakeholders, including academics, practitioners, industry professionals and policymakers on the key issues, trends and developments shaping the emergence of smart tourism in the Baltic states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first attempt to bring together the historians of science from the Baltic States took place in Riga in 1958. Prof. Pauls Stradiņš (1896-1958) initiated and organised a joint meeting for historians of science from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania under the supervision of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. A program for future joint activities was developed, and the tradition of joint conferences--the Baltic Conference on History of Science (BCHS)--in each country followed. In 1991, the Baltic Association of the History and Philosophy of Science (BAHPS), uniting historians and philosophers of science of independent Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, took over organising the BCHS. The article aims to present an overview of the published results of the conference, which is partly based on the annotated bibliography (1958-1985) of the conference. The authors analyse the subject, dissemination and tradition of the BCHS, and discuss the role of academic institutions in organising the events. Since the overview was inspired by a decision to gather a complete set of books of conference abstracts, it also resulted in recommendations for conference organisers. Between 1958 and 2019, twenty-nine conferences were organised and 2,880 papers were presented. The next conference will take place in Finland in 2022. The main ideas of the article were presented at the 26th International Congress on History and Philosophy of Science in Prague in 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, research on trade rebalancing in agri-food supply chains has gained prominence due to trade sanctions, supply chain disruptions, and vulnerabilities exposed by pandemics and conflicts. This study focuses on the recalibration of agri-food trade dynamics, using the 2014 Russian import ban as a case study. The ban significantly altered the structure of agri-food export destinations for affected countries, particularly those sharing a border with Russia (e.g., Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Employing a cross-section regression model and structural break tests, we assess the trade rebalancing process. Our findings reveal short-term trade rebalancing effects, primarily observed in product groups not traditionally considered main trade specializations. There is evidence that significant part of the lost trade was redirected to EU28 or EAEU countries and end up in the common trade areas of these countries. Furthermore, we argue that the Russian import ban initiated a long-term structural shift in export patterns for non-traditionally traded banned products, while rebalancing for traditionally traded products was significantly quicker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, gained independence for the second time in the late 20th century, and are now investing in the whole society’s approach to defence, recognizing the threat from Russia, especially after the wars in Georgia (2007/8) and Ukraine (2014, 2022). Voluntary territorial defence forces are an important constituent of their national defence strategies. This paper aims to analyse these forces as an integral component of national security, based on a close connection with society, armed forces, and government. The similarities and differences between the three different volunteer forces will be highlighted and ultimately proven how they are strongly embedded in national and regional security setup, while also enhancing cross-border cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the effect of the accession to the Eurozone using the method of synthetic control groups. This method enabled us to compare the performance of the Estonian, Lithuanian, and Latvian economies with a combination of countries that have not accessed the Eurozone yet. We constructed a synthetic Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia model as synthetic control units from a donor pool to evaluate the impact of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) on macroeconomic performance through synthetic control groups. The donor pool in our model consisted of European countries that do not use the euro. We used annual data from 1990 to 2019 for models with GDP and productivity. The results indicate that deciding to enter the Eurozone could increase productivity - measured as GDP over employment. Or in other words - if these Baltic countries did not join the euro, their GDP per employer would be lower than the actual. Accession to the Eurozone or ERM II has not increased or decreased GDP in Baltic countries as much as productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Baltic states historically have overlapping geopolitical, economic and security interests. Relying on interviews with officials and document analysis, this article examines how Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania reasoned and behaved during the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union (Brexit). Our research used a triple-core conceptual approach. First, based on Wivel and Thorhallsson's conceptualization of small state strategies, we demonstrate that the three countries followed shelter seeking and hiding strategies as they sought to be neutral on issues not in their immediate interests for the sake of EU-27 unity, while simultaneously coordinating and aligning their positions with the other EU countries on the issues that were their primary concerns. Second, to explain Baltic choices, the article uses March and Olsen's conceptualizations and concludes that they were bound by the logic of appropriateness – conformed with the EU approach, because of the commonality of problems with the other EU-27 member states and the European Commission's style of leadership. Third, the research revealed that Brexit reinforced the Europeanization process, but there was little evidence of continued Europeanization in foreign policy after Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The problem of underestimating the burden of mental health-related mortality is widely discussed in the public health literature. Relevant scientific evidence from societies experiencing the largest burden of mental health mortality is important for better understanding global and national mental health challenges and improving policies. Three Baltic States - Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia - are countries in the Central and Eastern European region that experienced post-soviet transition trauma and showed among the highest suicide and alcohol-related mortality rates in Europe. This study aimed to examine the change in the burden of mental health-related mortality in three Baltic States in the context of consistent growth in life expectancy in 2007-2018.Methods: We calculated age-standardized years of life lost due to specific mental health-related causes of death in three Baltic countries from 2007 to 2018. Four mental health-related causes of death groups were analyzed: (i) all mental and behavioural disorders; (ii) intentional self-harm; (iii) main substance use-related causes of death; and (iv) external causes of death. The number of deaths came from the WHO Mortality Database; population exposures were extracted from the Human Mortality Database.Results: We found that the proportion of age-standardized years of life lost due to mental disorders was relatively low in all three countries. It varied from 0.2% for females in Lithuania in 2009 to 2.4% for males in Estonia in 2007. However, the proportion of age-standardized years of life lost from self-harm and substance use remained high. In 2018, the proportion of age-standardized years of life lost due to self-harm was highest among males in Lithuania (4.1%) while the highest proportion due to substance use-related causes of death was among males in Estonia (7.3%).Conclusions: Our findings indicate that the burden of mental health-related mortality remained high and showed divergent temporal changes across the three countries. In the context of the Baltic States and other post-soviet countries, fractions of various external causes of death and alcohol-related causes of death should be considered in assessing the total burden of mental health-related mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]