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Estonia has always received a low assessment in The Economist’s index, and has even demonstrated a slight downward trend in the years under observation. Of the four indices included here, this is the one that most clearly highlights some of the possible problems in Estonia’s democracy. Estonia’s result in 2011 was 7.61 points, which places us in 34 th place among 167 states, and in the category of flawed democracies. If we examine the sub-components of the index, we see that the main reason for Estonia’s low rating is its poor result in the political participation category, in which Estonia was given a rating of only five points out of ten. The given category assesses the level of electoral participation, autonomy and involvement of minorities, percentage of women in parliament, membership in political parties and political organisations, the citizenry’s interest in politics, readiness to participate in demonstrations, level of adult literacy, monitoring of politics in the media, and the promotion of political participation by the authorities. Other studies, like the World Values Survey, have been used to assess many of these elements. However, it is important to note that, since The Economist does not publish the non-aggregated data of its index, without recreating the assessment process ourselves, it is impossible to surmise what the reasons are for the evaluations given to the various points. Table 2.2.3 shows the assessments for the five main dimensions of the index for Estonia, as well as the other reference states of this report. From the comparison with the other states, we can see that some of the results put Estonia at the same level as the full democracies (a total score of more than 8 points), but in some dimensions, it lags behind significantly. In the strongest dimension – elections – Estonia gets the same amount of points as the full democracies, but this dimension does not differentiate Estonia, very much, from the other states. Almost all the reference states get approximately the same number of points (between 9.17 and 10), with the only exception being Singapore (4.33 points). But elections do not Table 2.2.2 Assessments of Estonia’s democracy from a comparative perspective Freedom in the World Estonia Central and Eastern Europe 1 (average) Former Soviet Union 2 (average) 1 100% 1,86 85,7% 5,21 29,8% Nations in Transit 1,93 84,5% 3,04 49,3% 5,99 16,8% Economist 7,61 76,1% 6,78 67,8% 3,74 37,4% Polity IV 3 9 95% 9,17 98,5% -0,41 47,95% Source: see the data of the given indices on the Internet 1 Albania, Bosnia ja Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary. 2 Except for the Baltic states. 3 Bosnia ja Herzegovina and Montenegro are missing from the Central and Eastern European states. Table 2.2.3 Estonia’s position in the context of the reference countries (The Economist’s index 2011) TOTAL Elections Source: http://www.eiu.com/public/thankyou_download. aspx?activity=download&campaignid=DemocracyIndex2011 Governance Participation Political culture Denmark 9,52 10 9,64 8,89 9,38 9,71 New Zealand 9,26 10 9,2 8,89 8,13 10 Switzerland 9,09 9,58 9,29 7,78 9,38 9,41 Finland 9,06 10 9,64 7,22 8,75 9,71 Austria 8,49 9,58 7,86 7,78 8,13 9,12 Czech Republic 8,19 9,58 7,14 6,67 8,13 9,41 Uruguay 8,17 10 8,93 4,44 7,5 10 Costa Rica 8,1 9,58 8,21 6,11 6,88 9,71 South Korea 8,06 9,17 7,86 7,22 7,5 8,53 Slovenia 7,76 9,58 7,5 6,67 6,25 8,82 Estonia 7,61 9,58 7,14 5 7,5 8,82 Chile 7,54 9,58 8,57 3,89 6,25 9,41 Taiwan 7,46 9,58 7,14 5,56 5,63 9,41 Slovakia 7,35 9,58 7,5 5,56 5 9,12 Singapore 5,89 4,33 7,5 2,78 7,5 7,35 suffice for the existence of democracy. Free and fair elections must exist, as well as, for instance, a government that functions in accordance with democratic values (including transparency and the lack of corruption). And the citizenry must perceive this (trust the government and the political parties). This is measured by the second yardstick in The Economist’s index. In this regard, Estonia, with 7.14 points, lags significantly behind the states under observation, and shares the lowest result with Taiwan and the Czech Republic. Therefore, it can be stated that to increase the minimal functioning of democracy, Estonia needs to improve the quality of governance and the functioning of the government. As far as the remaining three dimensions are concerned – participation, political culture and civil liberties – Estonia’s results in the dimension of civil liberties are the only ones comparable to the full democracies, although here, as in the case of the electoral dimension, all the states under observation get relatively high marks. Therefore, Estonia does not differ, substantially, from the other states. Estonia gets significantly lower results, than the full democracies, in the participation and political culture dimensions – 5 and 7.50 points, respectively. If we compare Estonia to the reference states, from this aspect, one can say that in the democracy dimensions, in which Estonia is in the best position (i.e. elections and civil liberties), it does not differ substantially from the states that are significantly more democratic, or those that are less democratic. However, in the dimensions where Estonia Civil liberties 70 Estonian Human Development Report 2012/2013
Figure 2.2.2 The distribution of the sub-scores of The Economist’s index in comparison with the group of selected countries (Estonia’s score is in big circle) Total Elections Governance Participation Political culture Civil liberties 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 Values of indices 3 2 1 0 Place 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 3 2 1 0 is relatively the weakest (participation and governance), Estonia’s result is generally comparable to the states with flawed democracies. For instance, even in clearly undemocratic Singapore, the functioning of the government is assessed at a higher level, and the democratic political culture there is at the same level. The given trend is clearly visible if we compare the distribution of the scores in the context of the given states from the highest to the lowest (Figure 2.2.2). This figure can be described, conditionally, by saying the following: the more stable and steep the decline of the line indicating one dimension, the more the levels of democracy in the given states differ from each other in this dimension. It is obvious that the level related to elections and civil liberties is high in most of the states, and only a few states have low results. At the same time, we can see that in the assessments for participation, but also for political culture and governance, the difference between the states with high and low results is clearly visible, and the transition from the high-level states to the low-level states is steady. Therefore, political culture, governance and, especially, participation, are the three dimensions that differentiate the highlevel democracies from the low-level democracies. The given context accentuates the importance of Estonia’s weakest dimension – participation. The Nations in Transit index also allows for an assessment of some of the possible problems with Estonia’s democracy, since it (like The Economist’s index) is compiled so that a maximum result is not impossible to achieve, but it is very difficult. Therefore, possible shortcomings are more visible. For 2011, Estonia got relatively low results in the following Nations in Transit sub-dimensions: governance (2.25 points on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 as the highest result); local governance (2.50 points); and corruption (2.25 points). Estonia’s results have remained quite stable through the years. If we consider the fact that the corruption, as well as the local and national governance dimensions, is equivalent to the functioning of government dimension in The Economist’s index, we see that both indices, generally, supported each other’s assessments in this field. We cannot say the same for the participation dimension, since Nations in Transit does not pay as much attention to this. However, in the case of the Nations in Transit, it should be mentioned that this is not a very transparent index. It is not known what the corresponding assessments are based on, and the only way to get a better understanding of the index’s results is to read the annual report about the states that is published along with the index, and which generally explains the reasons for the scores in the index. 5 The Polity IV index, which gives Estonia relatively high marks, also directs attention to the problems related to participation, as does The Economist’s index 6 . In the case of Estonia, it is the imperfect electoral rights of the Russian-speaking population in the parliamentary elections, which, in turn, affects democracy as it relates to the execution of executive authority. At the same time, the report directs attention to the fact that the corresponding discrimination is only indirect, and results from the decisions related to citizenship policies made when the state was established. Direct ethnic discrimination by the government was not noticed, but it is mentioned that, in the society as a whole, there is a low level of readiness for cultural integration. But, despite the aforementioned shortcomings and weaknesses, one should still note that Estonia’s position, 5 e.g. Pettai ja Mölder 2013. 6 A more detailed explanation of the given assessment, along with the index for Estonia, is published in the following report: http://www. systemicpeace.org/polity/Estonia2010.pdf Estonian Human Development Report 2012/2013 71
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ESTONIAN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2
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Table of Contents 1 Human Capital /
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Dear Reader Since the moment when E
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1Human Capital Estonian Human Devel
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the HDI’s content has also been h
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Figure 1.1.1 The human development
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Figure 1.1.7 The income sub-index:
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The results of the Princeton Projec
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the hypothetical generation. The to
Page 21 and 22: Figure 1.2.3 Life expectancy. Eston
Page 23 and 24: Table 1.2.2 also presents the most
Page 25 and 26: The new trends that are appearing i
Page 27 and 28: Figure 1.2.8 Components of populati
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Page 31 and 32: Initiation of Voluntary Birth Contr
Page 33 and 34: Table 1.3.1 Best-known educational
Page 35 and 36: (OECD 2012b). Therefore a certain r
Page 37 and 38: The reciprocal dependence of the pr
Page 39 and 40: Figure 1.3.8 Percentage of students
Page 41 and 42: Table 1.3.4 The quality of educatio
Page 43 and 44: 1.4 Health Raul-Allan Kiivet Change
Page 45 and 46: Table 1.4.1 Usage of prescription m
Page 47 and 48: allude to the fact that approximate
Page 49 and 50: promote healthy lifestyles among th
Page 51 and 52: Figure 1.5.1 The World Values Surve
Page 53 and 54: Table 1.5.2 Estonia’s participati
Page 55 and 56: Figure 1.5.3 The percentage of the
Page 57 and 58: Figure 1.5.5 Percentage of the Esto
Page 59 and 60: The fact that Estonia’s position
Page 61 and 62: Summary Mati Heidmets The global vi
Page 63 and 64: 2People and Society Estonian Human
Page 65 and 66: Table 2.1.1 Structure of the Bertel
Page 67 and 68: tioning market economies (15 states
Page 69 and 70: 2.2 Freedom and democracy Martin M
Page 71: Table 2.2.1 Democracy indicators Po
Page 75 and 76: would be something that none of the
Page 77 and 78: political participation are general
Page 79 and 80: strongest, while a very small perce
Page 81 and 82: is concerned, Estonia is one of the
Page 83 and 84: Figure 2.4.2 Average circulation of
Page 85 and 86: 2.5 Corruption Jüri Saar In accord
Page 87 and 88: Lithuania, 61%; and in Russia, 69%.
Page 89 and 90: 2.6.2 Intentional homicides in Esto
Page 91 and 92: crime. And thirdly, there was a wis
Page 93 and 94: References 1. Ahven, A. & Tabur, L.
Page 95 and 96: states included in the EU Kids Onli
Page 97 and 98: 2.8 Public assessments of the state
Page 99 and 100: Figure 2.8.4 Changes releated to tr
Page 101 and 102: of the state’s development are en
Page 103 and 104: Table 2.9.1 The positions of Estoni
Page 105 and 106: 3. IEP (2011). Structures of Peace.
Page 107 and 108: 3Welfare and the Quality of Life Es
Page 109 and 110: choices made, not what people say t
Page 111 and 112: Figure 3.1.5 Public social spending
Page 113 and 114: tion agreed upon the social contrac
Page 115 and 116: References 1. Aidukaite, J. (2006).
Page 117 and 118: hand, to the “inequality of acces
Page 119 and 120: and explanations of the extent of i
Page 121 and 122: 5- much more than I deserve. Some d
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people in Estonia consider the inco
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Table 3.3.1 Experienced Well-Being
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at about 70%. In Latvia and Lithuan
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sign. It seems that the usual view
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3.4 Quality of life Anu Toots 3.4.1
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a uniform composite indicator has n
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3.4.6 The components of life qualit
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Figure 3.4.4c Perceived quality of
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Figure 3.4.5 Changes in the depriva
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3.5 Environment dimension of well-b
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Figure 3.5.1.b Estonia’s position
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3.5.4 Energy intensity The energy i
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productivity, which is defined as t
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perceive themselves as worse off th
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4The Economy Estonian Human Develop
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vide a valuable connection for maki
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Figure 4.1.3 Components of economic
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ule of law, the sub-indicators for
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References 1. Acemoglu, D.; Robinso
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Development Report employs generali
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and pasture land, and this was capi
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Basing the total and net savings re
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4.3 Labour market Reelika Leetmaa,
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The problems include the very limit
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• Expenditures for active labour
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who lose their jobs. These ensure i
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4.4 Productivity and the economic s
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labour costs at the company level r
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Table 4.4.4 Comparison of the produ
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Figure 4.4.1 Annual average increas
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4.5 Innovation Erik Terk, Katrin M
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Table 4.5.2 Comparison of innovatio
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Table 4.5.4 Comparison of the indic
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in order to make the R&D potential
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It is characteristic of the South K
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mechanisms for increasing their sta
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Globalisation and Policy Patterns 5
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When Estonia regained its independe
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5.2 The impacts of globalisation an
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Table 5.2.2 Support of the differen
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5.3 Development policies Erik Terk,
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• C -the “Estonia-centred” su
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Figure 5.4.1 Support for the possib
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Summary Erik Terk Estonia is part o
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ehavioural patterns. Therefore, it
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EDR 2012/2013 authors Clemens Buche
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EDR 2012/2013 authors Alari Purju i
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Editor-in-Chief: Mati Heidmets Prod
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