Changes and adjustment in the foreign policy of Lithuania during Dalia Grybauskaitė’s presidency

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the main changes in Lithuania’s foreign policy between 2009 and 2019, and tries to evaluate the major shifts caused by Grybauskaitė’s decisions and choices to concentrate on specific positions or priorities. Gustavsson’s model of different stages of foreign policy changes serves as the theoretical basis for evaluating the selected cases. The study is based on interviews carried out in 2017–19 with Grybauskaitė and all her foreign policy advisors. By investigating selected cases from the agent perspective, this study can help elucidate why some of their decisions deviated from traditional Lithuanian foreign policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Lithuania
• foreign policy
• Grybauskaitė
• change

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Research Council of Lithuania under Grant S-LIP-18-46. Portions of this text also appear in the author’s recent monograph, Foreign Policy Analysis of a Baltic State: Lithuania and ‘Grybauskaitė Doctrine’ (ISBN 978-0-367-86318-0), published by Routledge in early 2021.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

List of interviews

Aleksiejūnas, N.: 16 April 2018; 29 January 2019.

Grybauskaitė, D.: 31 March 2017; 4 July 2017; 17 July 2018.

Jonavičius, L.: 4 July 2017; 14 December 2018.

Neliupšienė, J.: 5 July 2017; 1 February 2018; 15 February 2019.

Semaška, D.: 5 July 2018.

Vaisbrodas, R.: 11 July 2018.

Žičkus, M.: 14 November 2018.

Notes

1. This refers to the economic crisis of 2009–11. In 2009 alone, Lithuania’s GDP fell by 15%. The main task of the Lithuanian government was to stabilize the country’s economy, and foreign policy was also significantly affected by economic goals.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Lithuania [S-LIP-18-46].

Notes on contributors

Tomas Janeliūnas

Tomas Janeliūnas is a full-time professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science (IIRPS), Vilnius University. His research focuses on issues of international relations, foreign policy analysis, and security studies. He is the author of the book Foreign Policy Analysis of a Baltic State: Lithuania and ‘Grybauskaitė Doctrine’ (Routledge, 2021).