From: thietaniemi@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Nordic ESTONIA? (Was: Cut the crap
Date: 15 Sep 92 08:21:35 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

To the newsgroups talk.politics.soviet & soc.culture.soviet:
Sorry about the previous post with my name on it!
This is definitely the message I posted - the Helsinki university
central computer seems to do some curious things >:-0
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IS ESTONIA "A NORDIC DEMOCRACY"?
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In article <716498632@locust.cs.duke.edu>, wiener@duke.cs.duke.edu 
(Edward Wiener) writes:
>       Jarmo ----
>       -- do YOU really believe your own words
>       when you refer to Estonia as a "nordic democracy?"
> -- Eduard Wiener

I must apologize:
I just can't resist the temptation intruding the discussion.
Perhaps I might understand what Jarmo means with "nordic 
democracy":

(1) Seen from the constitutional and purely legislative point                      
of view, Estonia has definitely stepped to the path of nordic 
parlamentary democracy, no doubt about that! And that is what 
the overwhelming majority of Estonians are determined to strive 
for! Estonia has even sent it's application for the membership
in Nordic council (but it will not be let in at least during
next few years, because of it's different kind of social 
structure. And, perhaps, the Scandinavian-dominated Nordic 
council will set the emphasis on language qualifications:
Estonian is no Scandinavian language - it belongs to the Baltic 
Finnish languages like Finnish. This, in turn, might create 
some problems for the Finnish nordic identity).

(2) From a sociological point of view, Estonia can in no
circumstances be characterized as a "nordic democracy". It is 
no (social democratic) welfare state.
The legitimation of the Estonian government is mainly based
on legality and continuity of institutions than it's welfare 
prestations. Moreover, Estonia lacks strong trade unions and 
other well organized bodies of civil society representing the 
citizens' interests which are the fundament of nordic 
democracy. Estonia's democracy is surely not as deeply socially 
rooted as that of the other nordic countries.

(3) If there is something that most resembles of the nordic
countries in Estonia, it is the taxation :). The acting 
(leftist) Estonian government has set up a hard taxation (in 
post-Soviet circumstances) to the enterprises (35%) and the 
sales tax amounts 18% today. The Republic has now got a 
balanced budget, but it is suspect, whether the Estonian 
economy can in contemporary conditions afford such a "nordic" 
taxation.

(4) Of course, it should go without saying, Estonia faces some 
problems in its domestic and foreign policy which are typical 
to post-soviet-societies and totally unknown in other nordic 
countries (with the possible exception of Finland 1917-1920 and 
1944-1948). I have dealt with some of them in my other entries 
to thnewsgroups talk.soviet.politics & soc.culture.soviet.
 
with the best regards,
Tapani Hietaniemi, University of Helsinki

Estlands sak {r v}r.

(sorry, Scandinavian letters might be not readable on American 
screens!)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns