From Future Scenarios to Sovereignty Declarations: Estonian Cyberspeak and the Breakup of the Soviet Union

Juhan Saharov

Europe-Asia Studies, 2022, vol. 74, issue 5, 809-831

Abstract: This article shows how, in the middle years of perestroika (1987–1988), the Estonian opposition reform movement used technoscientific vocabulary to strengthen their quest for the republic’s ‘territorial self-management’. To this end, the opposition drew on concepts borrowed from disciplines such as cybernetics, systems theory, future studies and management. The article investigates how two particular concepts, ‘future scenario’ and ‘self-regulation’, were transferred from the scientific field to the Estonian political arena in 1987 and what was their role in pursuing the ‘self-manageable’ status for the republic. The process culminated in November 1988 with the adoption of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Estonian SSR. This development served as a catalyst for the adoption of similar declarations by other republics, which opened the way to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09668136.2022.2035320 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ceasxx:v:74:y:2022:i:5:p:809-831

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ceas20

DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2022.2035320

Access Statistics for this article

Europe-Asia Studies is currently edited by Terry Cox

More articles in Europe-Asia Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().