Cultures diplomatiques contemporaines des pays baltes : entre sécurité et idéalisme

The aim of the article is to understand certain aspects of the international behavior of the Baltic states through the study of the practices of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian diplomats. We rely on the concept of “diplomatic culture” to explain how the Baltic diplomats position themselves in the international environment. Culture underlies a structured and contextualised social behaviour: shared ideas, values, and perceptions which enable and constrain actions. The concept of culture allows us to define the specificities of Baltic diplomatic practices. This article is based on an ethnographic study of Baltic diplomats. The author collected the data for this research through one hundred qualitative interviews conducted between 2013 and 2019 as well as a year of participant observation at the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2015 and 2016. This study reveals that Baltic diplomatic practices are characterised by a logic of security. This logic comes from the historical and geopolitical context in which the Baltic diplomacies function, but also from the experience that Baltic diplomats have had with Russia since 1990, and the meaning that they give to this experience. Baltic diplomatic practices are also marked by idealism: a belief in liberal and democratic values and a sense of international justice, especially in the defence of the right of peoples to self-determination.