This open access volume examines current threats to democracy with a focus on Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. These small democracies face unique challenges from climate change, hybrid security threats, and geopolitical tensions. The book examines how these nations have adapted their institutions and practices to withstand disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and economic coercion, while also addressing environmental issues such as extreme weather and biodiversity loss.
Part of the two-volume Democratic Resilience in the Baltics, Volume 1, "Resilient Governance and Democratic Stability," highlights the mechanisms the Baltic states have developed to counter hybrid threats and maintain democratic integrity. It covers political, economic, legal, and social resilience, and provides insights into crisis management and infrastructure protection. It also covers underexplored areas of resilience such as legal frameworks and intelligence mechanisms.
The two volumes offer valuable lessons for other small democracies and larger states alike, highlighting the importance of resilience in safeguarding democratic institutions in an increasingly unstable world.
David Schultz is Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Political Science, Environmental Studies, and Legal Studies at Hamline University, USA. He is also a professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas, USA, and at the General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania. A four-time Fulbright scholar who has taught extensively in Europe and Asia, and the winner of the Leslie A. Whittington national award for excellence in public affairs teaching, Schultz is former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Public Affairs Education and the author of more than 45 books and 200+ articles on various aspects of American politics, election law, and the media and politics. His most recent books are Constitutional Precedent in US Supreme Court Reasoning (2022), Handbook of Election Law (2022), Presidential Swing States (2022), and Generational Politics in the United States (2024).
Rasa Smaliukiene is a Professor of Management and Public Administration at the Lithuanian Military Academy, where she teaches disaster management. She is an expert at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in a group on security and resilience; national representative at NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) in a group for Human Factors and Medicine; participant in national and international research projects. Her research interests focus on human factors in security and disaster management.
Vidmante Giedraityte is an Associate Professor and Head of the Research Group for Security Institutions Management at the General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania. She holds a Master of Law (2006) and a PhD in Social Sciences (Management, 2016) from Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania. With over 20 years of university lecturing experience, she also coordinates the MA+ Law Competence program at Kaunas University of Technology and participates in national legislative working groups. Her main research areas include state and society resilience to national security threats, cross-sectoral cooperation in crisis management, management of security institutions, the defense innovation ecosystem, public sector change and innovation management, and the legal regulation of public administration. She contributes to a range of national and EU-funded projects on national security and defense, has authored or co-authored dozens of scientific publications, and co-edited the book Europe Alone: Small State Security without the United States (2022, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).
