Klaipėdos universitetas

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.

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.