The European Union and Baltic States: Changing Form of Governance

摘要

The entrance of the Baltic states into the EU has influenced their forms of governance in a significant and direct way. Bengt Jacobsson and his colleagues have accurately analysed the changes in forms of governance in the book The European Union and the Baltic States. The book consists of nine chapters, the analysis of which provides the understanding that the authors reconsidered and redefined the phenomenon of governance, integrating public management, public policy and politics. The book starts with a consistent, balanced, constructive theoretical discussion. Jacobsson supports the idea that the countries which seek legitimization in the international arena keep to the rules and undergo a five-step adaptation process: implementation; modification; imitation; learning; and innovative understanding of rules (pp. 9-10). I do agree with Jacobsson's position because his research object is transitional societies, structural and institutional forms of governance and their segments. The research object of the transitional period changes constantly, as some elements disappear, while the new ones appear.