The Wikileaks Cables and Their Impact on the Visegrad Countries and the Baltic States [antikvár]

Introduction he book is a result of a research project entitled "The WikiLeaks Cables and Their Impact on the Visegrad Countries and the Baltic States," which was supported by the Small Grant of the International Visegrad Fund. The articles in this book are the proceedings of a conference held in Budapest in June 2012 in the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs. The main objective of the project was to compare the effects of the WikiLeaks cables on the Visegrad and Baltic States regions regarding both foreign policy and domestic politics. There were four main research questions posed. First, it asks whether the "CableGate" affair had any significant effect on domestic politics in the given country. Did the leaks play a role in the national elections anywhere in the region studied? Second, how can the general foreign policy-related impact of the WikiLeaks be assessed? Did it result in any turn in foreign policy? Third, what were the topics and issues particularly relevant for the State Department in the given country, in terms of both domestic and foreign policy? Finally, the research also studied the reactions of the wider public to the releases. In addition to the work's academic value, a specific policy-related objective of comparative research in this area should be the mapping of those issues and topics that are/were interesting for U.S. diplomacy. Identifying these "common denominators" may well contribute to the understanding of U.S. foreign policy objectives towards the wider Central European region. Before going into detail, it is important to clarify the purpose of this book. The objective is to provide a comprehensive, methodologically well-grounded, lively and diverse picture of the ways in which the WikiLeaks cables affected the countries of the Visegrad region and the Baltic States. However, the book does not aspire to be any kind of a guide either to the WikiLeaks in general or to the "CableGate" affair in particular. Numerous descriptions, often almost user manuals, have already been published about the WikiLeaks, including the meanings of the codes and abbreviations used in the cables, etc. Hence, herein no detailed technical description is provided for the cables themselves, as all this information is easily accessible both on paper and on the internet. Instead of focusing concretely on the cables, this collection of studies concentrates on their impact on foreign policy and domestic politics in the region studied. The WikiLeaks Cables and Their Impact 3