Gauging the Volatility of the Electorate: Voting for the Riigikogu, 1999–2004
Volatility indexes most often deal with the problems of democratic development and the stabilization of party systems.
It is a proven fact that net volatility is much higher in Estonia than in other post-Soviet states, not to mention Western societies. The underlying motive of this paper is to examine and map movements on the individual level. The author of the paper will attempt to construct a new index consisting of four elements: the number of voters that have abandoned a certain party, the total result for all parties in the first election, the new supporters of the party, and the total result for all the parties in the second election. The inclusion of these elements guarantees that the new index is capable of taking into consideration all possible movements.