Informal dimension of political process in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: the main trends

The article analyzes the informal dimension of the political process in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia after break-up of the Soviet Union. Based on the data from international organizations, the article demonstrates that informal, opaque practices of intra-elite interactions remain an important challenge to their political systems, despite the successful accession in 2004 to the European Union and the formal compliance to democratic procedures. In particular, it is peculiar to the Republic of Lithuania. Despite a decade passed since Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia joined the European Union, informal practices are still among the set of tools and methods for making important policy decisions used alongside the official, formal tools. The retrospective analyze shows that Lithuania demonstrates the regression in some indicators (in particular, the level of public confidence in politicians, in terms of public perception of corruption). Country in which the informal «friendly» relations are more important than legal and legitimate rules and «clubs of classmates» try to substitute power would inevitably face the problem of the fall of the level of confidence in their own government institutions, as well as the worsening gap between the elite circles and mass groups. In this regard, the political system of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are unlikely to be called the finally formed. The problem of informal dimension of political process is still on the political agenda and exacerbates the very complicated domestic situation in all Baltic states.