Sociology and Sociologists During the 30 Years of Estonia’s Post-socialist Transformation

Sociology, as it emerged in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) during the Khrushchev Thaw of the 1960s, was assigned to give decision-makers numerical feedback about the population’s attitudes and living conditions. It functioned as a substitute for the feedback mechanisms that in the West were provided by markets, political democracy, and civil society. With the glasnost policies initiated in 1986, possibilities of criticising the system were opened, but scientists also continued to be held in high esteem in the new situation. For a few years during and immediately after the revolutionary period, sociologists played a visible role in politics. Since the early 1990s, they have rather avoided taking party political stances and acted as experts on certain policy areas, such as social policies and ethnic minority integration. Sociologists have generally shared the political elite’s quest for modernisation and Westernisation, but they have reacted against growing inequality. Some of their political initiatives gained moderate success when they highlighted issues potentially jeopardising Estonia’s membership in the European Union. In recent years, a right-wing populism has been emerging that is less concerned about the previously prevailing modernising and Westernising agenda and directly questions the need for evidence-based politics.