Finessing Foreign Pressure in Education through Deliberate Policy Failure: Soviet Legacy, Foreign Prescriptions, and Democratic Accountability in Estonia

Abstract

After a half century of foreign domination, Estonia relished the freedom and self-determination that it had reclaimed by declaring independence from the Soviet Union during the summer of 1991. That self-determination soon collided with the new geopolitical realities of Central and Eastern Europe in the post-cold war era. To secure its independence from Russia, which was perceived to be a hostile and menacing neighbor, Estonia would have to submit to a wide range of regulations and policies pushed by its allies and would-be protectors of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Though many required changes were sensible importations of effective policies, others struck at the very core of cultural and historical divisions between Central and Eastern Europe and the West.¹ Rather than being able to look primarily to the strong policy preferences of its own people as a guide to policy—a premise of democratic governance in traditional models of national sovereignty—Estonia had to navigate a new transnational policy environment that gave the European Union and NATO extraordinary leverage over its domestic policies. At times, this pressure would take unexpected directions.