ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 32, No. 1 (EE) September 2020 Estonia political briefing: The Autumn of the … internal politics E-MAP Foundation MTÜ 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft.
[email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: CHen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 The Autumn of the … internal politics Is there a niche left for internal politics to engage a given society’s attention when you have so much going on internationally? The pandemic, Belarus, the upcoming presidential elections in the USA, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, trade disputes between China and the United States, a range of issues related to climate change, emerging cybersecurity challenges, and Karabakh… Quite enough for a solid decade, not just for a single year…For Estonia intra-political life, there is a chance to reflect on the actuality, while using process tracing method. The most recent sounding examples of such professional reflections were given by Toomas Hendrik Ilves (an interview and an article), the country’ former President (2006- 2016), Indrek Kiisler (an article), Head of Radionews Department at Estonian Public Broadcasting or ERR, and Raimond Kaljulaid (an article), a Riigikogu Member from Social Democratic Party. While answering the question on “Estonia’s condition today”, Ilves noted that the country has “come to a standstill”, finding some similarities between the current status quo in Estonia with what happened to the politics in the Republic of Ireland about 70 years ago (“the young men who had led [the country to its independence] got old and the country entered a period of stagnation”1).