The four stages of state rebuilding in the Baltic states since 1990

The three small Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – regained their independence with the end of the Cold War. They turned to the path of state rebuilding within the new international system and the emerging political and economic environment. The countries reclaimed their statehood of 1918–1940, readopted their original constitutional structures and learned from diplomatic mistakes in their history when rebuilding their modern states. This chapter analyses the Baltic states and seeks to explain which factors have been motivating them through the process of rebuilding their states from 1990 until today. The analysis finds that geopolitical security concerns and the need for foreign capital were the driving motivations for both the transformation of domestic policies and international positioning. Joining NATO and the European Union were major factors defining their post-Soviet transformations. The research conceptualises four stages of state rebuilding – the post-Soviet stage (1990–1995), the EU accession stage (1995–2004), the EU learning stage (2005–2014), and the growing international self-assertiveness stage (2015-present) – to explain the political, legal and societal transformations that took place, the economic changes and legacies that formed, and the foreign policy and security aspects of Baltic statehood.