Demokraatia ja valitsemise õppekava magistritööd – Master´s theses

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Browsing Demokraatia ja valitsemise õppekava magistritööd – Master´s theses by Author "Ehin, Piret, juhendaja"

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    Democracy, economy and happiness in post-Soviet States (1995-2014)
    (Tartu Ülikool, 2017) Dimitrova, Lyubomira; Ehin, Piret, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Sotsiaalteaduste valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut
    Defining and measuring happiness has been a major topic for many generations of scholars. The contemporary discussion tackles upon the main predictors of happiness and their influence on the subject. This paper focuses on the influence of democracy and economy towards happiness, using the fifteen post- Soviet countries as cases. The data for the research has been collected from 1995 to 2014 and has been analyzed both on aggregate and individual level. The results show that on individual level both the economic status and the satisfaction with democracy have significant influence towards happiness. However, on aggregate level the income inequality appears to be the only predictor of happiness in both cases where the democracy factor is controlled for or not.
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    Participatory budgeting as a social innovation: motives and outcomes of enactment: based on the example of the city of Tartu
    (Tartu Ülikool, 2019) Avagyan, Meline; Ehin, Piret, juhendaja; Muhhina, Kristina, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Sotsiaalteaduste valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut
    The diffusion of Participatory Budgeting (PB) at a local level has attracted the attention of many researchers. PB has been invented in Porto Alegre, Brazil during the time of redemocratization of Brazil in 1989. Afterwards, it has been diffused globally and currently it exists in almost all continents. The diffusion of policies and social innovation is quite widespread and one policy can be applied to various kinds of contexts which, in their turn, can be quite different from each other. The current study explores the diffusion of PB at a local level, how it travels around the world and more specifically, how, why and with what results it was adopted in the city of Tartu in Estonia. The main aim of the thesis is to understand what drove the adoption of PB in Tartu and whether the expectations of city government and NGO from PB enactment have been met or not. The theoretical framework of the thesis is built on the existing literature about PB diffusion drivers around the world, starting from Brazil until Africa. Based on the existing theories, the main expectations of this study were that Tartu city government adopted PB for the purpose of gaining more popularity and votes as well as for increasing levels of citizen participation and awareness. Moreover, it was supposed that the city government wanted to find better practical solutions for various problems the city has. The research has been conducted using qualitative methods of research, relying on elite interviews with employees of Tartu city government and e-Governance Academy as the main source of empirical information. In order to ensure the validity of the research results, a triangulation of data was applied, combining statistical data and information from media articles with key-informant interviews. The results have shown that PB enactment in the city of Tartu was a result of a cooperation between an NGO (e-Governance Academy) and the city government of Tartu, both of them having the same objectives. The main incentives of PB implementation in the case of Tartu were citizen engagement and citizen education about the budgeting process of the city. During the six years of PB experience at Tartu (2013-2018) 3 only one of the main objectives has been met, which is the citizen engagement, as, every year the number of citizens interested in the process of decision-making is being increased. At the same time, PB failed to be a tool of citizen education about the budgeting process. This largely due to the fact, that only a very limited budget was allocated for the process, and there were not many opportunities for citizens to have a broader picture of the whole budgeting process of the city. In sum, this study contributes to the field of PB diffusion at a local level, and its results can be applied both in and outside of Estonia for understanding the objectives and possible results of PB enactment.
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    The role of civil society organisations in ethnic conflict resolution in Georgia: challenges and opportunities
    (Tartu Ülikool, 2018) Cherkezia, Nika; Ehin, Piret, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Sotsiaalteaduste valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut
    Ethnic conflicts in Georgia have almost 30-year-long history. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, two Georgian regions – Abkhazia and Samachablo (so called South Ossetia) claimed independence. These two regions were/are militarily and politically supported by Russia. International actors and organisation like UN, EU and OSCE have also participated in round table meetings between the parties. However all of negotiations at the official level have failed to resolve the conflicts. Instead, Georgia and Russia do not have diplomatic relations with each other and waged war in 2008. Hence, it is of huge significance to look into the opportunities and challenges for the civil society organisations in the process of conflict transformation. Therefore the aim of the thesis is to contribute to the existent literature about the challenges and opportunities faced by civil society organisations (CSOs) while working for ethnic conflict resolution in Georgia. The main focus was to analyse the role and the activities of the CSOs to discuss the problems that hinder them from conducting productive projects in the conflict regions. The research has shown that civil society organisations face common challenges, which have different solutions according to the characteristics of the problem. The thesis is a good basis for further research on the issue of the ethnic conflicts in Georgia.
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    Societal gaps in attitudes regarding conscription: the case of Estonia
    (Tartu Ülikool, 2021) Nuutre, Sigrid; Ehin, Piret, juhendaja; Raik, Kristi, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Sotsiaalteaduste valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut
    While many countries have replaced conscription with professional voluntary armies, some have retained it. In democratic countries public opinion is essential for policymaking, this applies also for security and defence policies. There are only few countries where public opinion towards conscription has been studied continuously over time, Estonia being one of them. When examining public support for conscription it is also important to look into differences in public opinion among different societal groups over time. The objective of the thesis was to explore whether and how attitudes towards conscription vary across different social groups as well as over time, and to offer and evaluate possible explanations for why these variations exist. This thesis develops and tests four hypotheses focusing on differences between societal groups in Estonia in their attitudes towards conscript service, using a multimethod design. The quantitative data was extracted from three opinion surveys and the qualitative data was extracted from nine expert interviews with a purpose to find possible explanations to those existing differences. The empirical results show that even when attitude among the general public of Estonia towards conscript service is highly supportive, gaps exist between younger and older generations, Estonian and Russian-speaking residents, and between conscripts and general population. The results of expert interviews suggest that possible explanations for variations across age groups include different threat perceptions among younger and older generations. A possible reason for the variation between conscripts and general population is that those young people who are conscripted have their own ‘skin in the game’ and their freedom is constrained. Reasons why variations exist among people with different language of communication are language barriers and different information spaces.