Displays of the personalisation of politics in lithuanians' political attitudes

The aim of the bachelor thesis named "Displays of the Personalisation of Politics in Lithuanians' Political Attitudes" is to identify what attributes, described in the findings of the scholars studying the phenomen of the Personalisation of Politics, are characteristic to Lithuanian voters' attitudes towards politicians and the political system, and to better understand what is the nature of the Lithuanian voter-politician relationship. Namely, the aim of the thesis is to see what are the Lithuanians' attitudes towards Lithuanian parties, individual party leaders, the presidential candidates and the political institutions. In order to better understand Lithunians' voting behaviour and it's underlying reasoning, 23 in-depth interviews have been made with citizens of various cities, using a semi - structured questioneer. In recent decades, many scholars noticed the ever-growing decline of social and partisan alignements, ideological voting and the increasing importance of leaders in political decision making. "Closeness to the masses" has become a new criteria for electoral success. The crucial requirement for a good leader becomes possesing certain personal attributes - or better yet, the voters' belief that those qualities are possessed. Technological innovations and the growing impact of television, as well as organizational changes in parties themselves - becoming “catch-all” parties, allowed the rising of individual political actors above their parties. Scholars around the world are wondering, what is the reasoning behind a vote today? Qualitative content analysis of the transcribed interviews revealed the state of crisis in the Lithuanian party system. Ideology based voting, with a few exeptions, is almost non-existant. Votes based on political values have different meaning to Lithuanian voters than it does to the Western citizens and often represent voting based on individual politicians' characteristics. Voters don't trust parties and value candidates with no party affiliation. Voters express the need to change the electoral system. The impact of mass media on political reasoning is bigger than originally thought – the evaluations respondents offer echo each other, as well as the messages heard on mass media. The real effect of mass media should be evalued in further studies. The impact of the change of the electoral system on voters' disposition needs further reasearch too. The most meaningful take away of the thesis is the apparent need of fostering Lithuanian citizens’ political literac