1. Toompea Castle—the seat of the Estonian parliament and Government.Google Scholar

2. Estonian Market and Opinion Research Centre Ltd., the biggest polling company in Estonia, founded in 1990, a full member of Gallup International.Google Scholar

3. Paul R. Abramson, Political Attitudes in America. Formation and Change (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1983), p. 71.Google Scholar

4. S. Neumann, Modern Political Parties (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1956).Google Scholar

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8. Hermann Schmitt and Sören Holmberg, “Political Parties in Decline?” Chapter Draft for Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs (eds.), Citizens and State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming); Lecture at the IPSA-School of Political Science (Tallinn: Sakala Center, 1993), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., p. 2.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 1.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., p. 4.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., p. 1–35.Google Scholar

13. EMOR Omnibus Survey, February, 1993, N = 1000.Google Scholar

14. Hans Jorgen Nielsen, “Danish Politics and Elections,” Lecture at the IPSA-School of Political Science (Tallinn: Sakala Centre, 1993), p. 6.Google Scholar

15. A moderate party of political grotesque, propagating the idea of an Estonian Kingdom.Google Scholar

16. An electoral association representing national-fundamentalist views, inclined toward participal democracy and populism, the predecessor of the Estonian Citizens’ Union.Google Scholar

17. The biggest ruling party, with 31 seats in the 101-seat parliament; it is a moderately nationalist coalition party formed through a merger of four little rightist parties before the 1992 election supporting a free market economy and the restitution of proprietary rights.Google Scholar

18. EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1992, December, N = 1000.Google Scholar

19. USIA Survey (conducted by EMOR), 1989, December, N = 1000; EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1990, February, N = 925; Basic Political Attitudes Survey (EMOR), 1991, March, N = 1554; USIA Survey (conducted by EMOR), 1993, July, N = 987.Google Scholar

20. National Election Survey (EMOR), 1992, September, N = 1128.Google Scholar

21. Ibid. Google Scholar

22. EMOR Omnibus, February, 1993, N = 1000.Google Scholar

23. Former emigre Estonian and US colonel who resettled in Estonia in 1992; founder and leader of both the electoral association “Estonian Citizen” and later of the Estonian Citizens’ Union.Google Scholar

24. EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1992, November, N = 1000; EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1992, December, N = 1000; EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1993, January, N = 1000; EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1993, February, N = 1000.Google Scholar

25. EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1993, December, N = 1000; EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1994, January, N = 1000.Google Scholar

26. EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1993, November, N = 1000.Google Scholar

27. The Centre Party was formed on the basis of a section of the Popular Front at the initiative of one of the Popular Front leaders and in an abortive attempt to monopolize the image of the Popular Front by that party.Google Scholar

28. EMOR Omnibus Survey, 1993, April, N = 1000.Google Scholar

29. The Balticom Project, Preliminary Report (Tallinn: 1993).Google Scholar

30. Ahto Lobjakas, “The Mass public and the development of political institutions in Estonia since 1988,” Research Project granted by NATO, Preliminary Report (Tallinn: 1993), p. 8; the research project is based on methodology developed from Michel Foucault's theory of discourses and praxes. By the term “matrix/discourse” is meant here a regime of meaning, always existing together with concrete form of everyday praxis, for present purposes defined as a framework legitimative rationalization signifying and articulating a particular political modus vivendi. Praxis is the material, behavioral part of discourse; praxis is inseparable from discourse, but the term discourse refers to a symbolic sphere interpreting or even allowing praxis.Google Scholar

31. Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, Jerrold G. Rusk, and Arthur C. Wolfe, “Continuity and Change in American Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1968 Election,” American Political Science Review, No. 63, 1969, pp. 1083–1105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. In 1920 an ultra-proportional electoral law was passed which led to an unduly fragmented parliament and to frequent cabinet crises. This resulted in 1934 in the formation of an authoritarian regime in Estonia (the so-called “silent Era”). There has been speculation that the alienation of power from the people was in a way fateful for the Estonian State in 1939 when the Soviet Union forced its military bases upon the Estonian leadership.Google Scholar