Regional Formation and Development Studies

The author demonstrates how the current refugee situation reflects the crisis of values within the European Union. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the United States have revealed that some western citizens are eager to restore traditional values and extreme order as an opposition to the current idea of democracy within the EU member states which leads to libertarian tendencies, and potentially to chaos. The conflict of traditionalist and libertarian tendencies among the European Union citizens most likely will increase, and this can lead to the further European Union disintegration. The case of Latvia and related analyses have shown that some Central and Eastern Europe countries will are not willing to accept refugees. Therefore, this study uses the grounded theory approach, based on historical facts and opinions of classical authors, while explaining that healthy and wealthy society should be based on an extended or at least on a nuclear family. In this paper, a case study of Latvian citizens’ attitudes towards refugees is used to support psychological hypotheses which are mainly of the theoretical nature. In the author’s opinion, it is important to understand that real traditionalism means democracy which is based on order and hierarchy. In contrast, libertarianism leads to the democracy where the family model is not supported and the whole system of values is corrupted. The author demonstrates on historical events that such attitude can lead to destruction of the whole society, and explains why virtues and family oriented systems have been established and promoted by classical philosophers and by religions.

The article presents a survey on Klaipėda district residents’ attitude towards corruption. It is necessary to evaluate the level of corruption in a particular local area because understanding the incentives for corruption and self-dealing is a precondition for making progress. Citizens’ perceptions are important for local governments where citizens have more direct impact on political representation and service provision in their communities. The research revealed that Klaipėda district residents’ attitude towards corruption is negative and the population is aware of the harm caused by corruption. The respondents rarely face the forms of corruption practices. Most respondents think that excessive bureaucracy and the complexity of the legal framework, which is constantly changing, contribute to prevalence of corruption. Most respondents have given bribes to medical personnel. The respondents assume that the most effective anti-corruption means is the inevitability of punishment, as well as giving publicity to corruption acts. When faced with corruption, residents would turn to law enforcement bodies and use anonymous helpline.

The article aims to define how the main principles of the Swedish welfare state, i.e., the “multi-stakeholder principle” and the principle of trustfulness and collaboration, affect activity of the anti-corruption civil society. For the study, the following empirical methods have been used: the analysis of documents and in-depth-interviews with experts. The author demonstrates that the anti-corruption activity of civil society in Sweden can be considered as part of wider social movements for human rights, democracy and integrity, especially at international level. There are a lot of associations and unions in Sweden that, among other joint activities, promote anti-corruption practices and rules in state organisations and commercial enterprises. The state and government need to be oriented to social challenges and keep pace with civic movements. A partnership with different stakeholders is the main type of the Swedish ACS’s activities that help to reach their goals in preventing corruption behaviour, e.g., “Anti-corruption policy networks”, and it is the result of two types of collaboration: anti-corruption participation and anti-corruption services. The research has shown that the civil society’s ability to create networks with the state, business and other agents is the main condition for the so-called horizontal accountability and sustainability and for preventing corruption in Swedish society that, in its turn, has been established over a long period of time building the culture of integrity and civic institutions.

In most cases the internet has a positive effect on its users – it offers unrestrained communication, expression of opinions and sense of openness. On the other hand, excessive usage leads to internet addiction. The most important features of the internet include rapid spread of information and news, access to tremendous amount of information, personalization and anonymity. After the literature review of theoretical research of authors from Lithuania and abroad, and application of theoretical analytical, resumptive, analogical, deductive and comparative methods, the features of XXI century media literacy were identified. A questionnaire allowed to examine the internet’s specifics and nature of users’ media literacy online. Empirical research was conducted to analyse the internet users’ behavior based on age groups as well as to identify their level of literacy. A big part of today’s daily activity and free time is related to usage of the internet media. Many services take an online form. Therefore, the issue of Lithuanian users’ online behavior becomes a concurrent to the development of welfare society, and media literacy gets to be one of the necessities for future skills. Instead of searching for and passively using the given information, internet users start to make their own, evaluate it and spread further. The users are enabled to fashion their private social networks, they become responsible for organization of the whole personal communication infrastructure. This research points out the main reasons of Lithuanian internet users not using e-services: the lack of media literacy and insufficient spread of the service-related information. The biggest difference in literacy among age groups was noticed while evaluating personal predisposition to internet addiction. Levels of literacy based on age groups were significantly different in terms of ability to critically evaluate online information.

This paper evaluates the impact of corruption on deforestation in Indonesia. The world’s nature environment and global warming questions are one of the main factors of international concerns. Massive deforestation threatens Indonesian biodiversity. This research paper analyses issues of whether deforestation in Indonesia is caused by corruption and supported by crude palm oil production. This issue was questioned earlier by using Engel Granger cointegration test, three time series of data, specifically corruption perception index (CPI), rate of deforestation and price of crude palm oil that was inspected for a long-run relationship. Yet long-run relationship was not found. The author of this article shows that while answering this question, CPI values are not as important as the very nature of corruption in Indonesia. However, CPI is still extremely high in Indonesia as the nature of corruption is convenient for illegal logging. Thus, international response is needed so that to decrease the level of deforestation in Indonesia. With the new European Union Law that requires legal sourcing of wood products, Indonesia commits to enforce new rules in the Asia’s largest rainforest. For example, FLEGT licensing became operational on November 15, 2016. The European Union is strictly enforcing these rules what is a good step against deforestation in hand with illegal logging in Indonesia. In this way to analyse in detail the FLEGT programme and the EU activities, is beyond the scope of this paper. There stays questioned the Indonesian Presidents’ ban on new palm oil plantations and mining licence, because such approach can potentially increase corruption and unofficial economy at local levels. The author of this paper wants to fulfil the gap in understanding about the link between deforestation in Indonesia and corruption. The level of corruption in Indonesia is not the main issue, but the nature of corruption is the main problem.