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CONTROL MECHANISMS AND

The central thesis of this paper will be that Estonia and its ethnopolitical relations between Estonians and Russian-speakers can analytically best be described as a control regime. While the country also fulfills most of the features and conditions laid out by Smooha for being an ethnic democracy, it remains essentially a control regime so long as the majority of Russian-speakers remain non-citizens and are not naturalized into the political system. The paper will begin by examining and explaining the emergence of this fundamental dimension of control, i.e. non-citizen status for the majority of Russian-speakers of Estonia. It will review the development of so-called ‘legal restorationist ideology’ in Estonia during 1989-1991 or the doctrine that called for the denial of automatic citizenship to Soviet-era immigrants to Estonia after the restoration of independence. This doctrine had profound implications for generating a disproportionately ethnic Estonian citizenry and altering the political balance of power in the country. At the same time, however, it did not lead to an extensive system of control (for example, as described by Lustick in Israel), as a majority of social rights were maintained also for non-citizens. Still, it has been through this large-scale sidelining of the Russian minority from political life during the last eight years that major elements of a future ethnic democracy have been put in place. In a second section, we will review these tenets as they relate to the eight features of ethnic democracy outlined by Smooha. In a third section, we will review the mobilization strategies of Russophone political groups in this context. What response strategies and attitudes have emerged among Russian groups in response to this particular control mechanism of a denial of automatic citizenship? How effective have they been in mobilizing minority support as well as effecting change vis-à-vis the dominant system? Finally, we will reflect on the normative aspects of the Estonian control system and its prospects for stability in the future. Is there a likelihood the system will evolve into some other regime (such as liberal democracy, consociational democracy or multicultural democracy) during the 21 century given changing social, economic and international conditions? Or will ethnic democracy remain its likely trajectory?