| Abstract [eng] |
‚Politicians’ Concept Evolution and Prospects of the Formation of the State Image in Lithuania since 1991. Their Impact on Lithuanian Foreign Policy’ analyses the topic of the image formation in the country. The object of the work is the image of the country as a soft power tool in order to realize the strategic nation’s goals. Basically nowadays the hard power resigns the place to the methods of the soft power. It goes without saying that both powers always functioned and, in my opinion, will function, but this time there is a clear overbalance in the side of the soft power. In most countries lots of selling companies work in the sort of the same market and offer the same products (democratic, freedom, citizen’s relief and all that). The ability to sell their goods (certain interests in the case of the countries’) depends on the facility to create their own appropriate image. Therein lays the main connection between the international and country’s political image. With reference to Wendt’s A. social constructivism theory, the order in the world is determined not only by the distribution of the material capability, but also by inter-subjective ideas which embody the countries’ identity and treatment. It is worth to modify that the main essence of the social constructivism theory is to conceive what the country itself is and only then it can be pointed where to go and how to do this. The identity can service for this. The aim of the research is to analyze the politics of the image formatting through the main formatting elements and present the links of the politics and foreign policy characterizing specific problems and setting the recommendations. The hypothesis of the research is to prove that the image of the country can influence the direction of the nation’s foreign policy and help to pursue strategic purposes. Has the impact on the country’s position in the international relations. It can be recognized that many mistakes are being made in creating the image of Lithuania. An artificially and thoughtlessly formatted conception is interesting only for the founders and it does not reach its goal. On the other hand, I disagree with the thoughts that there is no need to create the image, that the prospect (reality) will create the image itself. The trouble is that the image made by the prospect could not be acceptable for us and as it can be seen from the developing situation, it can not even be formatted, and Lithuania as the country can stay prosy, unknown and unremarkable. The research has shown that Lithuania used its image properly even though obliviously until 2004 while joining the transatlantic organizations when the priorities of the foreign policy were very obvious. After the admission to the transatlantic organizations, Lithuania can not find its own place in the world. The image formation does not have a vivid support because of the vague foreign policy. Another burning problem is that Lithuania confronts with is a continuity of the image formation politics. Finally according to the audit’s results which have been accomplished in 2009, it can be emphasized that there is no a united opinion about what a positive image of the country is. The funds are exploited inefficiently therefore they are not followed by ‘The umbrella’ principle. The present situation has two scripts: Lithuania is still staying as an unknown country for the first case which will have an obvious impact on the economic difficulty because of the ‘Made in..’ effect and will reform the existing institution of the image formation, dispose all possible actions and create a new strategy which would encompass a slogan and goods’ logo. For the strategy not to be accomplished only on the paper, it is essential to reform the main six areas of the image formation adjusting infrastructural problems and finally defining the precise priorities of the foreign policy. |
