Estonian Case Study Research Articles

The hidden cost of excess capabilities: a threat to future military readiness

ABSTRACT There is an often-neglected aspect of defence and military planning: the presence of excess and excessive capabilities in certain areas, despite existing capability gaps elsewhere. Focusing on Estonia's recent experiences, the analysis reveals how unchecked excesses can lead to unwanted resource drain. The study highlights the critical need to address the risks associated with surplus capabilities, which can cause cost inefficiencies and hinder force development. Findings from the Estonian case study indicate that excess capabilities within the existing force structure accounted for an average of 10–25% of total resource requirements, and in the context of certain capabilities, this excess was even more. These findings are relevant to both military and non-military contexts and underscore the importance of continuous reassessment and optimization of resource use.

Mobile positioning-based population statistics in crisis management: An Estonian case study

Key to strong disaster management practices is to have a clear understanding of people's whereabouts in disaster areas. One novel method for retrieving this information near real time is mobile positioning data. The goals of this research were to develop a methodology for identifying de facto populations and population groups in potential disaster areas, evaluate their spatio-temporal variation, and assess the applicability of the associated statistics in disaster management. Population groups – residents and temporary residents, workers, foreign and domestic tourists, regular and transit visitors – were identified based on Estonian historical mobile positioning data, where the details of stays and trips are provided based on longitudinal mobility behaviour.The main findings included that population changes follow clear week-hourly rhythms for de facto populations, residents and workers, but not for tourists and temporary residents. There are distinctive and identifiable geographical differences in how population group presence changes over time. Rescue workers asserted that the methodology of population statistics enabled them to assess population presence and composition in areas more precisely than registry-based approaches. This should evacuation planning, resource allocation and communication activities while preparing for and responding to disasters.

Online incorporation platforms in Estonia and beyond: How administrative spillover effects hamper international taxation

Online platforms that allow non-residents to register firms have emerged to boost economic development goals in jurisdictions ranging from Wyoming (United States) to Estonia. They create novel governance challenges that fall between governance frameworks. The global tax governance agenda needs to address the role of such platforms, which often involve conflicts between economic policy aspirations and other goals. Our Estonian case study demonstrates the inability of authorities to perform background checks of numerous non-resident entrepreneurs, as national administrative capacities get strained. Building on the nascent tax spillover approach, we analyse administrative spillover effects caused by online incorporation platforms in international taxation. Mapping de facto administrative capacities requires analysing conflicts between governmental priorities and the obstacles of sharing information between administrative and criminal procedures. When the non-resident community grows compared with the size of the domestic economy, supervisory systems tailored for domestic entrepreneurs become strained. We show that resolving this policy conflict assumes targeted investments into administrative capabilities from skilled personnel to data exchange and interorganizational coordination.

Organizational dilemmas of EU-funded policy development: the case of Estonian government task forces

IMPACT Public sectors are characterized by the increasing role of temporary policy development initiatives—often the result of targeted development funding like the EU structural funds. This article provides insight into the opportunities and constraints of temporary organizational arrangements enabled by central funding. Complex policy issues can be tackled outside of existing policy frameworks and problem-solving routines, but the practicalities of implementation and ownership after the end of the interventions need to be considered. Understanding the trade-offs means that public sector managers will be able to make the new arrangements more effective and sustainable. The authors draw out the lessons for international practice from an Estonian case study.

How is plant biodiversity inside grassland type related to economic and ecosystem services: An Estonian case study

Biodiversity is globally recognised as a cornerstone of healthy ecosystems and extensive management is assumed to increase biodiversity in all grassland habitats. Often, the maintenance of these semi-natural grasslands via mowing or grazing is financially subsidized and different ecosystem benefits are associated with the plant biodiversity value. These assumptions are usually made after comparing different ecosystems or management options. However, less information is available about the relations between plant biodiversity and ecosystem services in practice. Hence, we studied the impact of biodiversity on the fodder quantity and quality in two different semi-natural grassland habitats. We also checked if the species more commonly found in sites with higher biodiversity are more endangered in comparison to the rest of the species and if they have special site requirements in terms of Ellenberg indicator values. The soil of Estonian calcareous grasslands had higher pH as well as organic matter and Nitrogen content than the soil of Estonian mesic grasslands (habitat 6270). However, the average annual biomass production in the first ones was significantly smaller most probably due to water shortage. No clear relation between site productivity and plant species number was detected in either habitat. The average species number in both studied habitats was almost similar, but the median species amount in mesic grasslands was more than 13% higher than that in calcareous grasslands. Crude protein along with starch & sugar content in the calcareous grassland biomass tended to be lower than in mesic grasslands. In the last habitat, the content of these two components favoured both for fodder and biogas purposes tended to be lower in sites with more species. Positive correlations were found between species number and biomass detergent fibre contents, which is why it must be inferred that plant biodiversity does not improve grassland biomass quality. We detected several species of the Near Threatened category from the IUCN red list, but none of these appeared in our list of species that grew with higher probability in grasslands with higher plant biodiversity. According to principal component analyses, these listed species are less common, less nutrient demanding and more salt tolerant than the rest of the plant species found in calcareous grasslands and more common than the rest in mesic grasslands species. We conclude that high site biodiversity does not guarantee any larger income for the typical bioeconomy products, so other potential economic services should be included to the farm’s budget.

Narrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2023: An Estonian Case Study on AI Lore

With the rapid emergence of new technologies in contemporary societies, new reflections of human experience arise. One of the recent technologies introducing massive changes in human life as well as in human reactions is artificial intelligence (AI). In the spring of 2023, about six months after the text-based AI ChatGPT was made available to the masses (Pistilli 2023), the public discussion about AI was most intense in Estonian society. The aim of this article is to analyse the narrative motifs and ways of narrating (including a proposed typology) AI-related topics in the Estonian mainstream and alternative online media chat groups in May and September 2023 respectively. Six general types of narration on AI were detected. The collected material showed that Estonian AI lore is considerably polarised between strongly negative and positive stories. Especially during the first wave of AI discussion in May 2023 the majority of narratives had negative or doubtful tonality. One of the factors that triggers a negative or cautionary tone in AI lore seems to be the lack of transparency in AI development. In addition to AI story types, this article tries to map the archetypes of plot characters (actants) of AI lore based on Propp’s classification of fairy tales which distinguishes between seven behavioural patterns. In addition, this study revealed a specific fluidity beyond genre boundaries that has also been observed in urban legends.

Shipping Related Activities and Their Environmental Impact – Lessons Learnt from the Estonian Case Study

Shipping Related Activities and Their Environmental Impact – Lessons Learnt from the Estonian Case Study

Recovery dynamics of ecosystem carbon budgets in a young silver birch stand chronosequence after clear-cut – Estonian case study

ABSTRACT Clear-cutting is an extensively used silvicultural method in the Nordic and Baltic countries, which strongly influences the site’s carbon (C) budget. In the current study, C budgets for a young silver birch stand chronosequence (2–8-year-old) were compiled using the C budgeting method. High variability of annual NEP between stands of similar ages occurred, as the C accumulation ability of young stands was site specific. Heterotrophic respiration (Rh), the main C efflux from the ecosystem, varied between (3.7 and 6.3 t C ha−1 yr−1) across all stands. Modelling of the annual NEP dynamics across the chronosequence revealed the C compensation point at a stand age of 6 years. The estimated cumulative C loss for the period when NEP was negative was almost 5 t C ha−1 and the amount of lost C could have been recaptured already in a 10-year-old stand. The C sink capacity of the studied sites depended mostly on the production of herbaceous plants until the production of the new tree generation became the main driver of ecosystem’s net primary production. Hence, site’s C accumulation capacity largely depends on the density and quality of the new forest regeneration.

Analysis of Traditional and Alternative Methods for Solving Voltage Problems in Low Voltage Grids: An Estonian Case Study

Smart Cities can benefit from existing municipal low voltage (LV) distribution grids by supporting public services with permanent power supply and providing grid connection points to distributed generators (DG). The increased integration of DGs and inverter based non-linear loads increases voltage quality issues, thus the cost-efficient assurance of voltage quality in LV grids with long radial lines is of increasing importance for the operators of municipal electricity distribution systems. Conventional methods for mitigating voltage quality issues (e.g., power line renovation) might not be optimal solutions either technologically or economically. Existing studies do not address all relevant issues related to the assurance of required voltage quality in such LV grids. This paper provides an overview of the applicability and rationality of traditional as well as alternative methods to solve voltage problems in LV grids. The authors use DIgSILENT PowerFactory software to simulate the performance of voltage stabilisers under different conditions. The authors propose a robust method for the classification of LV feeders and provide recommendations on how to resolve voltage quality problems, with the help of different power quality improvement devices, where the traditional methods of upgrading to medium voltage and grid reinforcement are economically infeasible. Based on our results, recommendations for mitigating voltage quality problems in LV distribution grids with radial lines of different lengths are given.

Understanding gender segregation through Call Data Records: An Estonian case study.

Understanding segregation plays a significant role in determining the development pathways of a country as it can help governmental and other concerned agencies to prepare better-targeted policies for the needed groups. However, inferring segregation through alternative data, apart from governmental surveys remains limited due to the non-availability of representative datasets. In this work, we utilize Call Data Records (CDR) provided by one of Estonia’s major telecom operators to research the complexities of social interaction and human behavior in order to explain gender segregation. We analyze the CDR with two objectives. First, we study gender segregation by exploring the social network interactions of the CDR. We find that the males are tightly linked which allows information to spread faster among males compared to females. Second, we perform the micro-analysis using various users’ characteristics such as age, language, and location. Our findings show that the prime working-age population (i.e., (24,54] years) is more segregated than others. We also find that the Estonian-speaking population (both males and females) are more likely to interact with other Estonian-speaking individuals of the same gender. Further to ensure the quality of this dataset, we compare the CDR data features with publicly available Estonian census datasets. We observe that the CDR dataset is indeed a good representative of the Estonian population, which indicates that the findings of this study reasonably reflect the reality of gender segregation in the Estonian Landscape.

Introduction

This introductory article offers a theoretical frame for the current special section, discussing protests’ value for analyzing performance, power, expansion, and exclusion, and contributes its own case study from the ongoing anti-logging protests in Estonia. While arising from power imbalances, protests hold powerful tools for achieving their aims. The introduction considers protests’ ability to expand in space, through time, and beyond topics, and to capture wider support, creating communities in the process. At the same time, considering the contexts of protests, it also demonstrates how such movements get caught up in the normative features of human sociality, reproducing the existing power relations, including those the protests aim to challenge. The Estonian case study enables further insight into this by analyzing dispossessions that protests both aggravate and suffer from.

On How Crowdsourced Data and Landscape Organisation Metrics Can Facilitate the Mapping of Cultural Ecosystem Services: An Estonian Case Study

Social media continues to grow, permanently capturing our digital footprint in the form of texts, photographs, and videos, thereby reflecting our daily lives. Therefore, recent studies are increasingly recognising passively crowdsourced geotagged photographs retrieved from location-based social media as suitable data for quantitative mapping and assessment of cultural ecosystem service (CES) flow. In this study, we attempt to improve CES mapping from geotagged photographs by combining natural language processing, i.e., topic modelling and automated machine learning classification. Our study focuses on three main groups of CESs that are abundant in outdoor social media data: landscape watching, active outdoor recreation, and wildlife watching. Moreover, by means of a comparative viewshed analysis, we compare the geographic information system- and remote sensing-based landscape organisation metrics related to landscape coherence and colour harmony. We observed the spatial distribution of CESs in Estonia and confirmed that colour harmony indices are more strongly associated with landscape watching and outdoor recreation, while landscape coherence is more associated with wildlife watching. Both CES use and values of landscape organisation indices are land cover-specific. The suggested methodology can significantly improve the state-of-the-art with regard to CES mapping from geotagged photographs, and it is therefore particularly relevant for monitoring landscape sustainability.

The e-LocGov Model for Introducing e-Governance into Local Governments: An Estonian Case Study

We report on the results of an ongoing, long-term, large-scale, cross-organizational, and canonical action research project that we started in Estonia in 2003 to develop a reusable model (e-LocGov model) for the systematic introduction of e-governance into local governments. The project was conducted in cooperation with 126 local governments, which constitute more than half of Estonia's local governments. Given the complexity of the task, the endeavors in this project are necessarily highly interdisciplinary and cover the legal, the managerial, and the technological spheres. Consequentially, the e-LocGov model consists of major building blocks, each of which meets with a major challenge in the introduction of e-Governance: (i) state readiness, (ii) local government readiness, (iii) transition/implementation, and (iv) analysis and assessment. We provide a comprehensive explanation of the e-LocGov model and its building blocks. Also, we report on the research methodology and the theoretical background of this project.

Challenges and opportunities for e-mental health policy: an Estonian case study

ABSTRACT Public administration of mental health policy is an area that raises issues about human rights and dignity, equality of access to high-quality mental health services and the adequacy of financial resources. Globally, most people with mental health problems lack access to care services due mainly to the limited number of trained specialists, the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illnesses, and fragmented service delivery models. A widespread response to the growing demand for integrated care is the establishment of e-mental health services engaging primary and secondary healthcare specialists from different disciplines. In Estonia, evidence-based e-mental health solutions are being introduced to improve access to mental healthcare and to reduce the costs associated with treatment. However, awareness of the benefits of e-mental health solutions remains limited among healthcare professionals and the wider population. This article draws on findings from EU-funded research projects to examine the challenges Estonia faces in adopting e-mental health solutions. The author shows how the lack of public investment in evidence-based e-mental health interventions and the reluctance of relevant professionals to engage with e-mental health technologies have resulted in legal uncertainty, hindering full implementation of e-mental health policy in mental health services.

Content marketing from the perspective of PR specialists: an Estonian case study

Abstract This paper is an exploratory study to understand the content marketing practices in Estonia, a current trend that ties together journalism, communications, and advertising. Estonia is a small market where the ‘guilds’ of journalists and PR professionals are rather intertwined. Trends occurring here may provide suggestions for larger markets and future developments. A qualitative study was conducted in Spring 2018. The objective of the study was to describe the problems and potential complications arising from the reorganization of traditional areas of activity of agents operating in the field of the communications industry – specifically in the context of content marketing, and from the viewpoint of representatives of PR agencies. The article begins with putting the phenomenon of content marketing into a wider societal context – and specifically that of the Estonian media ecosystem. The possible influences of content marketing on such important realms, and such defining factors as trust (Luhmann 2000), social capital (Bourdieu 1995) the integrity, independence, and the interactions between the different fields (ibid) are discussed. The results of the survey indicate that the field of public relations is changing as a result of the forces from the other neighbouring fields, that of journalism and advertising. The paper points out that the issue of trust and trustworthiness and the origins of ‘the media’ need to be addressed in order to provide integrity and transparency.

Remote search and seizure in domestic criminal procedure: Estonian case study

Law enforcement all over the world is struggling with time-critical access to evidence stored in electronic devices. At times these devices may be located in foreign territories or in cloud service providers’ servers. Considering the decentralization of the Internet and the ubiquity and complexity of cloud computing, the exact location of the data in question may not always be possible to determine. Both conditions—the possibly extraterritorially located data and the inability to identify the location of the data—raise questions regarding the legal limits of law enforcement’s access to such data. To tackle these issues, this article examines potential options for accessing extraterritorial data during a criminal investigation. In particular, the article will focus on the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime’s remote search and seizure procedures and analyses whether these provisions have been transposed to the Estonian Code of Criminal Procedure. Further, by comparing the legislation and practice of remote search and seizure in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, the article reflects upon the current European legal discussions that will likely inform the future regulation of transborder access and suggests potential options for the reform of domestic procedures.

Emergency preparedness and response in ISO 14001 enterprises: an Estonian case study

Emergency preparedness and response is one of the key elements of the 14001 standard of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). ISO 14001 requires participating organisations to implement procedures for emergency preparedness and response. Organisations implementing and certifying environmental management systems (EMS) are obliged to identify potential emergency situations and accidents that can impact the environment and plan an appropriate response. In this context, we studied Estonian enterprises to analyse the variety of approaches to emergency preparedness and response. The main aim of this survey was to examine the identification and assessment of, as well as the response to, accidents and emergency situations in a selection of Estonian organisations that had implemented the requirements of ISO 14001. As a result of this study, we reached a number of conclusions that organisations can consider during the implementation and later improvement of their environmental or integrated management systems.

One Country, Two Polarised Audiences: Estonia and the Deficiency of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive

This article argues that until recent times, the Estonian media policy has mainly been interpreted as an economic issue and it did not account for the strategic need to build a comprehensive media field to serve all groups in society. This has happened despite the fact the Estonian media policy is in line with the European Union (EU) media policy, which should ensure freedom of information, diversity of opinion and media pluralism. Findings of the Estonian case study show that despite these noble aims, Estonia has two radically different information fields: one for Estonian speaking audiences and one for Russian speakers. Events in Ukraine have added to the democratic media policy paradigm a question of national security. Now it is a challenge for the policy makers to unite polarised media fields and how to minimise the impact of Russian propaganda. On the EU level, one supportive measure could be a revision of the Audiovisual Media Service Directive.

Põllumajanduslik tootmine talupoegadeta: sovhooside ideaalpilt ja tegelikkus 1940. aastate Eestis [Abstract: Agricultural production without peasants: ideal image and reality of sovkhozes in Estonia during the 1940s

Soviet state farms (sovkhozes) have not attracted much attention in historical literature. While the history of forcing farmsteads into collective farms (kolkhozes) is nothing less than the history of subordinating the peasants and changing the lives of millions, the history of sovkhozes seems rather peripheral. They were purely state farms, their contacts with rural society were marginal and their economic weight was insignificant due to their small number. It might seem that sovkhozes do not contribute much to understanding Soviet agriculture. And yet, due to their exceptional position, sovkhozes give evidence of the ideals and desires of the Soviet elites in their purest form. As opposed to collective farms, there were no local rural traditions that could interfere with the aims of the Communist leadership. Since the work was done by wageworkers, they represented an agriculture without peasants. Soviet ideals were virtually implemented under laboratory conditions. Furthermore, until the Krushchev years, sovkhozes were exclusively and generously financed from the state budget. They were very well supplied with manpower, draft cattle and towing vehicles, machines, fertilizer and animals. In the Baltic Soviet republics before mass collectivization the main function of the state farms was to propagandize Soviet large scale agricultural production. The Estonian case study shows that they failed. The oversupply of machines and fertilizer led to their unproductive use. Likewise, while the number of animals in state farms was increased at the expense of private farmsteads, the sovkhozes lacked the conditions for large scale animal husbandry and food had to be bought from the private sector. And while the sovkhozes had more manpower than they could productively use, turnover among workers was very high. Many came from the old Soviet republics, had problems coping with the Estonian language and saw their job merely as an intermediate stop. The discontinuous character of the workforce was one reason for inadequate and incompetent work. The strict forms of Soviet work organization proved unrealistic in a number of state farms and were replaced by local modes of labour. The line between self-help, corruption and self-enrichment of the sovkhoz leadership is often hard to draw. Due to these defects the sovkhozes never served as an advertising vehicle for large scale Soviet agriculture. The Communist Party leadership knew this perfectly well, yet they could not admit that the main reason for the problems was the Soviet agricultural policy itself. Keywords: Stalinism, Soviet countryside, state farms (sovkhozes), Estonia, agriculture.

Polarised television audiences. The outcomes of the Estonian and European audiovisual media policies

The European Union’s (EU) liberalisation of media policies and its content quality bias towards economic efficiency has resulted in a situation where, in some small markets like Estonia, the audience is divided into two parts. The Russian-speaking audience in Estonia mainly follows Russian state TV channels, and the Estonian-speaking audience watches Estonian television channels. This has happened even though the EU media policy should ensure freedom of information, diversity of opinion and media pluralism. Findings from the Estonian case study show that despite the noble aim of the EU media policy, Estonia has two radically different information fields: Estonian-language media promotes European values, and Russian state media, enjoying high popularity among the Russian speakers, promotes ‘Putin’s values’.The question is whether the EU legal instrument — Audiovisual Me­dia Service Directive (AVMSD) — is an efficient tool when disinformation from third countries is disseminated with the aim of gaining a political in­fluence over the EU member states’ citizens. The recommendation is that the AVMSD should be revised in a way that prevents unfair competition directed from third countries and tools should be developed to compensate for market failures.