In January 2026, Dr. Sandro Tabatadze from Georgia joined the V. Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute at Vytautas Magnus University (VDU) as a new postdoctoral fellow. He will conduct a research project entitled “Resilient Europe: Policy Transfer and the Baltic Model of Democratic Resilience”.
According to Dr. Sandro Tabatadze, the findings of his project will provide timely insights for European policymakers and governance practitioners working on democracy protection in times of geopolitical crisis.
The research examines how Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have maintained strong democratic institutions and a pro-EU political consensus despite sustained external pressure, disinformation campaigns, and regional security threats. By identifying concrete governance practices – such as inter-institutional coordination, crisis communication strategies, and trust-building mechanisms – the project reveals that democratic resilience is built not only domestically but also transferred across states and EU policy networks.
From a broader political science perspective, the study advances research on democratic resilience by linking it to policy transfer theory. While existing scholarship treats resilience as a national characteristic, this project conceptualises it as a form of transferable governance knowledge that circulates through regional cooperation, joint declarations, and EU-level policy forums.
The findings are expected to contribute to ongoing debates on how the EU can strengthen its institutional capacity to withstand hybrid threats and democratic backsliding, particularly in candidate and neighbouring countries facing similar pressures. This reseaarch is embedded in the Institute’s broader research agenda on democratic governance, European integration, and political resilience.
Dr. Sima Rakutienė, a researcher at the VDU V. Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute and associate professor at the VDU Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, is supervising the research. The postdoctoral fellowship is scheduled to conclude in December 2027.
This postdoctoral fellowship is funded by the V. Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute’s project, “Strengthening the R&D Activities of the Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (SOCMTEP) 2023–2027”. This project is funded by the Lithuanian Science Council and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Lithuania (agreement no. S-A-UEI-23-13, 27 December 2023). The project programme is the “University Excellence Initiative” (Order No. V-665 of the Lithuanian Science Council).
