Browsing by Author "Ehin, Piret"
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Item Estonia: Empowering the Executive(Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2022-12-02) Talving, Liisa; Ehin, PiretEstonia successfully curbed the spread of COVID-19 in spring 2020. The government reacted relatively rapidly to the crisis outbreak, declaring an emergency situation on March 12 and introducing measures such as closing schools, banning public gatherings, and restricting movement across borders. Saaremaa, the largest island and the epicenter of the virus, was isolated. A 2 billion-euro aid program was launched, including labor market support, sickness benefits, and tax incentives. Adjustment to the emergency situation was alleviated by Estonia’s advanced digital society. Levels of public compliance with the restrictions were, in general, high. While the government’s handling of the crisis is considered successful overall, the emergency situation facilitated the concentration of power in the hands of the executive. In a situation where normal parliamentary and societal debate were hampered, the government pushed through legislative proposals concerning migration, environment, and social affairs that extended beyond the immediate needs of the pandemic and that undermined democratic values.Item Internet voting in Estonia 2005–2019: Evidence from eleven elections(2022) Ehin, Piret; Solvak, Mihkel; Willemson, Jan; Vinkel, PriitInternet voting is a highly contested topic in electoral studies. This article examines Internet voting in Estonia over 15 years and 11 nation-wide elections. It focuses on the following questions: How is Internet voting organized and used in Estonia? How have the Estonian Internet voting system and its usage evolved over time? What are the preconditions and consequences of large-scale deployment of Internet voting? The results suggest that the rapid uptake and burgeoning usage rates reflect the system's embeddedness in a highly developed digital state and society. Through continuous technological and legal innovation and development, Estonia has built an advanced Internet voting system that complies with normative standards for democratic elections and is widely trusted and used by the voters. Internet voting has not boosted turnout in a setting where voting was already easily accessible. Neither has it created digital divides: Internet voting in Estonia has diffused to the extent that socio-demographic characteristics no longer predict usage. This, combined with massive uptake, reduces incentives for political parties to politicize the novel voting mode.Item Second-order effects or ideational rifts? Explaining outcomes of European elections in an era of populist politics(Cambridge University Press, 2020) Ehin, Piret; Talving, LiisaThis article seeks to enhance our understanding of the European Parliament (EP) elections in an era of populist and anti-European Union (EU) politics. Specifically, it aims to evaluate both the conventional second-order elections theory as well as an alternative approach that regards EP elections as an arena for conflict between liberal-democratic Europeanism and populist, extremist and euroskeptic alternatives. It does so by deriving a series of hypotheses from both approaches and testing these with party-level data from all EU member states in the context of 2019 EP elections. Our results challenge both explanations. Party size is a robust predictor of electoral performance in EP elections, and its effect is moderated by electoral system design. While large parties lost votes across the EU, their losses were more pronounced in countries where national legislatures are elected under plurality or mixed systems. We find no evidence of incumbent losses or electoral cycle effects. Party-level populism, extremism and euroskepticism did not systematically predict electoral performance but party ideology appears to have moderated the effects of incumbency and party size. Incumbency was associated with vote gain among populist and far-right parties but not other parties, and the effect of size also varied across party ideologies. In sum, these results suggest that vote fragmentation in the 2019 EP elections is partly explained by electoral system design, while it was not driven by the desire to punish political incumbents. Populist and far-right parties in power appear to be particularly immune to punishing behavior often associated with EP elections.Item Sissejuhatus rahvusvahelistesse suhetesse : õpik kõrgkoolidele(Tartu : Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2018) Berg, Eiki; Ehin, Piret; Kasekamp, Andres; Mälksoo, Maria; Piirimäe, Eva; Toomla, Raul; Toomla, ReinItem Still second-order? European elections in the era of populism, extremism, and euroskepticism(2021-02) Ehin, Piret; Talving, LiisaThe continued relevance of the second-order elections (SOE) theory is one of the most widely debated issues in the study of European Parliament (EP) elections. While the theory has been criticized from many angles, the recent success of populist, extremist, and Eurosceptic parties raises additional questions about the applicability of a model that depicts EP elections as a lowstakes affair revolving around national issues. This article tests the SOE model with party-level data from all 175 EP elections held between 1979 and 2019. While turnout in EP elections remains well below participation rates in national elections, the 2019 EP elections were marked by a significant reduction in the average turnout gap. Across all election years, party size is the most potent predictor of electoral gains and losses in EP elections. Incumbency is associated with electoral losses in most EP election years. These effects are moderated by the electoral cycle and the electoral system in some but not all years. The expectation that the SOE model performs worse in countries with fragmented party systems was not confirmed. All in all, the SOE model continues to wield significant explanatory power in both the West and the East.