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Civic Commitment, Political Culture and the Estonian Inter-War Generation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Li Bennich-Björkman
Li Bennich-Björkman*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden. Email: li.bennich-bjorkman@statsvet.uu.se
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Extract

The purpose of this article is to investigate to what extent civic commitment and the political culture from the Estonian first republic survived communism at an individual level. Have representatives of the Estonian inter-war generation who endured Soviet occupation been able to remain civically committed even though they were disconnected from democratic institutions for a major part of their lives? Sometimes labelled “republican,” this generation matured into early adulthood during an unusually formative period in Estonian history, when the new democratic state was taking shape in between the two world wars. Hence, it fulfils the criteria of a political generation as “a group of human beings who have undergone the same basic historical experiences during their formative years.” The analysis contributes to two different, although in this context interrelated, discussions. The first addresses the roots of Estonia's successful post-communist experiences, the second the extent to which early socialization endures dramatic institutional shifts.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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