BRIEF HISTORY

The leader of the research team Raivo Vetik moved from the Department of Political Science of Tartu University to the IISS in March 1998 and immediately launched a group doing research on inter-ethnic relations in Estonia and Estonian ethnopolicy. The Department of Government at the IISS (with research focus on democratic governance and national integration) was established in the beginning of 1999 when the research group received its first target financing from the Ministry of Education of Estonia. It should be mentioned, that research on inter-ethnic issues has been carried out in the IISS also earlier (by Aksel and Marika Kirch, Rein Ruutsoo, Klara Hallik etc.). Specificity of this research group was in its focus on national integration and policy making issues as well as a broader comparative perspective.

Since its establishment, the department has played an important role in the Estonian political science landscape. The major scholarly achievement of the department (which is very much related also to developmental activities) consists in the fact that the conceptual part of the ‘Integration Programme of Estonian Society 2000-2007’, adopted by the Estonian Government in March 2000, has been developed by our scholars. The conceptual part of the programme represents an innovative approach, which on the one hand is based on John Rex’s theory of multiculturalism and on the other hand tries to relate the concept of multiculturalism to post-communist realities. In Estonia the Integration Programme is often regarded as a model of how social scientists and policy-makers can work together to achieve social policy goals. The programme and its conceptual part have received also international attention and an article of Raivo Vetik introducing it has been published in ‘Runnymede’s Quarterly’, which is a leading journal on integration and multiculturalism in Great Britain.

The main trends of the research work at the Department of Government have developed in line with actual problems Estonia is facing. Besides inter-ethnic relations and ethnopolicy the department has launched several other research projects which are of vital importance for the Estonian state, like Estonia’s accession to the EU and public opinion in this regard, citizen’s trust towards political institutions, sustainable social development in Estonia etc. Several projects (for example, monitoring of national integration in Estonia) are carried out in co-operation with other institutions in Estonia and abroad. A number of applied studies have been carried out in co-operation with ministries and other state institutions in Estonia.