No. 4

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No. 4, December 2001

New foundations for party fund-raising. Drawing lessons from presidential elections. A concerned view of the public health project. How the Legal Chancellor protects the legitimacy of the legal system. The Riigikogu rostrum as propaganda platform. Education and work. On some problems in assessing the quality and impacts of legislation. The role of the Estonian Parliament after accession to the European Union. Fighting poverty with social policy. New Technologies in public administration. Security: The system and the people.

Summaries of articles are in English.

Full articles in Estonian

Editor-in-Chief’s Column

Parliamentary democracy

Politics

Constitutional institutions

Studies

  • The Media and Democracy

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    Democracy is impossible without free press. This is what media theoreticians, political scientists and commentators tell us. But this consensus brings up new questions: what kind of free press does democracy need, and why does it need it?

  • The Riigikogu Rostrum as a Propaganda Platform

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    Propaganda has been around for centuries, and the word has always had a derogatory connotation. Around the middle of the last century propaganda was renamed public relations, so that the people would not associate the agitation of democratic governments with the brainwashing of dictatorships.

  • On Good and Bad Propaganda

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    The origins of propaganda may be traced back to the time when groups of people first exercised power over others. This implies that in those days already attempts were being made to influence the public. The word propaganda (L. propagare - 'to spread') is assumed to originate from the organisation Congregatio de propaganda fide of the Roman Catholic cardinals that was founded by Pope Gregory XV in 1622.

  • Education and Work

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    There is a considerable gap between the output of the Estonian educational system and the demand for education from the labour market.

  • What Kinds of Requirements Should the Estonian Educational System Meet?

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    Will Estonian educational policy be successful? It all depends on to what extent it will be possible to harmonise the activities of the ministries that influence the implementation of educational policy, and also whether these activities can be linked to the overall strategic goals of the educational policy.

  • An Assessment of Legal and Regulatory Impact of Legislation

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    In the European Union (EU), integration works mainly through legal instruments. In formal addresses, the community is often referred to as a "legal community", "une communauté du droit", "Rechtsgemeinschaft". Legal forms are the focus of the whole of the EU's operation. Indeed, in terms of legal influences, membership in the EU differs radically from the common activities of other international associations. What makes the situation a complicated one, both for Estonia and several other countries of Eastern and Central Europe, is that the legal reforms introduced during recent years have not been completed.

  • On Some Problems in Assessing the Quality and Impacts of Legislation

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    The letter of the law gives the laws their form, but the deeper goals of laws are not juridical in their essence.

  • Investment Subsidies to the Local Government System

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    Examining the practices of investments of the local governments so far, it may be said that the seven-year-old system of investment subsidies to local governments has been characterised by permanent changes; fragmentary distribution of financial means; arbitrary decision-making; lack of clear criteria; during some years also a great influence of lobby work; and during the last two years, centralisation.

  • The European Union as Influence on Legislation

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    European Union (EU) decisions are made not only in Brussels. The homework performed in each member state is what matters. If we want this to go smoothly and want one common vote representing the state of Estonia in Brussels in the future, then now is the time to start thinking what the procedure of EU-related decision-making could look like in Estonia. It is true that first a number of foundational issues should be settled: conducting a referendum, possible amendment of the Constitution - which should not be confined to politics, but should also be carefully contemplated and justified also judicially.

  • The Role of the Estonian Parliament after Accession to the European Union

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    After accession to the European Union, the role of representation of the people will be limited, in the context of legislation, to the problem of how to ensure legislative control over the executive power, which is the state's main representative in the decision-making process on the European level.

  • The European Union and Estonian Social Policy Discourse

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    After entering into the Association Agreement in 1995, Estonia started making preparations for harmonisation of its legislation with the European Union's acquis communautaire. In reply to The White Paper: Preparation of the Associated Countries of Central and Eastern Europe for Integration to the Internal Market of the European Union, an action plan of the Government of the Republic was developed in 1996 for Estonia's integration into the European Union (known also as The Blue Paper). The action plans of the subsequent years also rely on the structure of The White Paper.

  • Fighting Poverty with Social Policy

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    A great proportion of the state's social benefits, including welfare, are paid to families that are not poor. Of the financial means allocated for ensuring the coping threshold, 62.3% is spent on supporting non-poor families. In the case of child or unemployment benefits, it is actually not the aim that these should reach only poor families. But unemployment benefits turned out to be directed most of all towards the poor - nearly half was received by the families living below poverty level.

  • New Technologies in Public Administration

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    Application of information and communication technology in public administration will ring great changes in the arrangements of public administration and set new requirements in front of the institutions executing public power.

  • Public Services’ Focus on the Citizen and the New Technology

    19 December 2001

    Studies

    RiTo No. 4, 2001

    The aim of administrative reforms of the recent decades has been to simplify administrative procedure and to introduce a focus on the citizen in public services. For the citizen, the main indications of quality service are speed, competence, comfort, fairness, and effectiveness. Focus on the citizen is provided by concentrating as many services as possible in a single location or unit in order to reduce the number of direct contacts with civil servants necessary to receive a service or meet a request.

Civil society and state authority

International parliamentary relations

  • Security: The system and the people

    Grey zones in European security structure are reality insofar as Russia's interests extend far beyond its current borders, and are, as such, more important than the right of single nations to self-determination. If we want more security in Europe, we must recommend the eradication of the grey zones; and this is feasible, if we insist on pursuing a more organized state of affairs in Europe.

  • The clear targets set by the new security forces structure

    The Estonian Defence Forces recently celebrated their 10th anniversary. Now the Defence Forces may step into their second decade of existence with clear development on a qualitatively new level: the "Analysis of the Structure of the Defence Forces", based on the Partnership for Peace between the Republic of Estonia and the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation, has been completed, as has a document called "The Structure and Development Goals of the Defence Forces for a Medium-Term Period" which sets out the development goals of the Estonian Defence Forces up to the year 2015, relying on the structural analysis performed in 2001. The document was approved by the Government of the Republic on 6 November 2001.

History of the Parliament

  • A parliament without parties: The 6th Riigikogu, 1938-1940

    With the 1938 Constitution, Estonia attained a two-chamber parliament consisting of a State Assembly (Riigivolikogu) and a State Council (Riiginõukogu). Its term was five years. The State Assembly was a house of deputies that had 80 members elected from a list of names on the basis of relative majority, from one-mandate constituencies. It adopted laws, approved the state budget and controlled the Government. The State Council was the passive house of the Parliament. It did not have the right to make law by itself, as all legal acts only became law after being reviewed by the State Assembly.

Literature and Databases

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