Wicked problems are a special subset of particularly complex issues that current problem-solving tools fail tofully address. Because of this deficiency, a new tool for evaluating and resolving wicked problems must be developed. Theories such as anti-positivism and systems thinking are explored in order to understand the nature of wicked problems, which are often defined by the involvement of multiple stakeholders as well as non-linear interrelations between various elements of the problem. Although traditional problem-solving methods are inadequate for wicked problems, there are certain tools that are more appropriate for handling such problems. These tools include the analytic hierarchy process, positional analysis, mess maps and heat maps. With their organized structures, visual languages and collaborative processes, these methods provide features that are well suited for tackling wicked problems. However, no single tool incorporates all of the necessary features. Therefore, a combination of the tools explored can yield a new and even more effective tool for wicked problems. This new tool, called STORM, is demonstrated through an evaluation of oil shale exploitation in Estonia. With Estonia currently dependent on energy from oil shale despite the environmental drawbacks, the situation is an ideal example of a wicked problem. The Estonian example shows how STORM can provide a greater understanding of wicked problems and allow resolutions to be negotiated. As sustainable development issues are usually considered to be wickedto sustainable development research.

Since the re-establishment of Estonian navy, Baltic naval cooperation has played various roles for the Estonian navy. During different periods, Estonian involvement in cooperation has been fluctuating and in 2014, Estonia decided to withdraw from afloat cooperation, yet continuing with other forms of it. In 2018, Estonia proposed new concept and goals for Baltic Naval cooperation. To better understand the current state of affairs, the main motives behind Estonia’s acting in cooperation from establishing the cooperation until today are studied and presented. The main aim of this thesis is high-light which factors are favourable to carry out the ideas presented in the concept for future cooperation, Baltic Naval Vision 2030+. Results show that there are factors indicating favourable conditions to carry out the plans, nevertheless, there are also factors less favourable. The most salient favouring factor is the strategic culture which is similar in Baltic countries, the most salient hindering factor is lack of top-down political support.

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This thesis investigates how the inhabitants formed the coastal landscape of northwest Estonia through both internal change and external impact by estate owners, provincial government and imperial decrees. Two villages on the largely Swedish populated Noarootsi peninsula, Einbi (Enby) and Kudani (Gutanäs), are examined in detail. The aim was to answer questions about how the local livelihoods and farming systems of coastal inhabitants changed from the late 1600s to 1940. The background of a gradual weakening of the manorial estate system from 1800 onwards and a rapid development of freehold family farming from the 1860s is important to the analysis. To examine the complex variety of factors and interactions that shape the landscape, an interdisciplinary approach to change has been used. This approach included a conceptual model for the local production unit, such as the individual farm. Information from historical maps, diverse population registers and agricultural censuses were used. The soil cover was examined with samples taken during fieldwork in the studied villages. The study shows how the development of two villages in fairly similar geographic settings differed largely due to socio-political restrictions. During feudal times, the primary changes were related to the fact that local nobility could maintain their land ownership rights and regulations for manorial deliveries and corvée duties. Changes to natural conditions, such as soil quality and land uplift, had no substantial effect on land productivity. From the 19th century, the most important factor was the legalized opportunity to purchase farms as freeholds from estates, as well as through land reforms in an independent Estonia. The traditional niche of coastal Swedish peasants, who depended on a variety of productive activities, remained in practice. As all manor land was nationalized, many new smallholdings and crofts were created based on external activities by inhabitants, such as farm day labor. Farm productivity was now increased primarily by improvement to land quality (use of artificial fertilizers and meadow drainage), and by the introduction of new implements and crops on farms consolidated from open fields.

The first chapter of the thesis offers a short theoretical view on relations among small and big states. The second chapter deals with political relations of Estonia and Russia. The chapter also describes beginnings of independent Estonian political scene as well as Russian reactions on the newly given situation. The third chapter looks at security dimension of the Estonian-Russian relations. In the fourth chapter the readers can find information about ethnic minorities in Estonia with emphasis on the Russian minority. The whole mninority issue is put into political, economic, diplomatic and security context. The fifth chapter describes mutual conflicts between Estonia and Russia which appeared in recent past and their consequences on both internal and international political scenes. Economic relations between Estonia and Russian Federation are described in the sixth chapter where one can also find comparison of the basic macroeconomic aggregates and quantification of mutual trade. A part of this chapter is also an analysis of competitiveness of Estonia and Russia. The seventh chapter deals with the reality of mutual crossborder cooperation between Estonia and Russia.

This thesis addresses critical strategies that have been used, or might be used, to approach Pärt's tintinnabuli music. It has three main objectives: to question prevalent narratives drawn around the tintinnabuli concept, to suggest interpretative frameworks that could yield fresh insights into that concept's 'meaning', and to introduce new and neglected materials to anglophone Pärt discourse. In studying the mediating role of the tintinnabuli scholar, I also confront some of the ethical challenges associated with research on living composers. This project places special emphasis on localised narratives of production and influence in Pärt's music, and draws extensively on Estonian primary source material. A major hermeneutic guide has been the composer's 1994 description of seeking 'the appropriate system for the gesture', and this idea figures in each of the four main chapters. Chapter 1 describes and questions existing knowledge around tintinnabuli, approaching this task through a study of "Wenn Bach Bienen Gezüchtet Hätte ...", a work chosen for its critically fertile 'cusp' status. Chapter 2 concentrates on Pärt's explorations of 'Soviet serialism' from 1960-3, engaging with withdrawn and film scores in addition to the well-known "Nekrolog". I discuss this music in terms of a complex freedom-constraint interplay, and suggest links to the tintinnabuli style. Taking "Sarah Was Ninety Years Old" as a case study, Chapter 3 turns to listener-oriented frameworks of musical meaning. I offer an experiential reading of the piece that places tintinnabuli in dialogue with body-based theories of cognition. Lastly, Chapter 4 addresses texted tintinnabuli. I build up a reading of "Miserere" in terms of 'musical rhetoric', comparing Pärt's compositional strategies to those used by Josquin des Prez in the 1503 motet "Miserere Mei, Deus". I also consider the implications of music-rhetorical analogy for wider understandings of the 'tintinnabuli' concept.

Contemporary musicological analysis of the musical languages and aesthetics of post-Soviet states has largely avoided the effect of independence, political and social integration into the EU, and the unanticipated preponderance of sonic information and exchange on composers working and living in the Baltic States. The diffusion of composers and musicians from the Baltic States in the 1990s and 2000s, the lack of a focal point of artistic contention and backlash after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as a social and intellectual realignment toward the EU and Western Europe have all distinctly affected Baltic nations' musical identities. This research examines the development of Estonian music over the period of twenty years, 1991-2011; initially, by comparing compositional processes, musical motives, scoring, harmony, and orchestration techniques of the post-Soviet to the Soviet eras; further, by defining aspects of the native Estonian musical identity as relevant to modern classical music and analysing its integration into concert music; next, by detailing the political effects of such integration, if any, during the Soviet period and their continued relevance since independence; the so-called exodus of Estonian composers into Scandinavia and further afield, the arrival of foreign composers; finally, the social effects of internationalism and the extent of Estonian composers' and audiences' focus on distinctly national versus international traditions within the realm of concert music.

Abstract In my study I have taken a contrastive look at Finnish and Estonian inflectional morphology as evidenced in their literary forms. In its perspective the present study differs from the contrastive linguistic research as it is commonly practiced in Finland, in which the objects of research have usually been the relations between Finnish and a morphologically poorer Indo-European language. The languages now in comparison are both morphologically rich languages, viz., Finnish and Estonian, and they also share a common historical background. The objective of my study is twofold: the primary goal is to obtain theoretical information about the relations of inflectional morphology that pertain between these two languages and, secondly, to acquire pedagogically applicable data for language teaching purposes. In order to achieve these goals, it is essential to find out how and to what extent Finnish and Estonian differ from each other morphologically, where the differences come from and how the changes have affected these languages typologically. The results show that by comparing languages it is also possible to discover such features that would not have been possible to detect by just focusing on one language. Natural morphology and markedness theory have served as the theoretical bases for this study. Even in the common grammatical categories there are differences in the markedness relations between Finnish and Estonian. Contrastive research usually deals with a synchronic comparison of languages. However, in analyses of morphological relations between Finnish and Estonian it has turned out practical to relate the synchronic phenomena to their historical background. By adopting this procedure, we are able to unveil the strategic solutions that have taken the languages in different directions. These solutions are reflected in synchronic differences and they can also be indications of typological differentiation. The reasons underlying morphological divergence between Finnish and Estonian can often be found in the developments that have taken place in Estonian: phonological changes can have led to changes in morphological structures and even to morphological innovations. The complete morphologicalization of consonantal gradation and the birth of internal inflection are two of the important processes that Estonian has undergone. To some extent, differences have also been caused by conscious development and standardization of the two languages. A comparison of inflectional morphology in Finnish and Estonian nouns shows that the singular and plural genitive forms have a more focal position in Estonian than they have in Finnish. I will also show in more detail, both diachronically and from the point of view of markedness, the nature of the relationship between the three plural types of Estonian compared to the two types in Finnish. In verb morphology there are important differences, for example, in the passive construction, the mood system and past tense relations as well as in the selection and morphology of the infinite forms. A characteristic feature of Estonian is the weakening of the category for person: many finite verb forms are without the person suffix altogether, or it is optional. The present analysis shows that the relations between Finnish and Estonian paradigm types are quite complex. For instance, many Finnish two-stem word-types are parallel to an Estonian type that has evolved into a single-stem type. However, Estonian can have developed a secondary consonant stem type, which has no equivalent in the Finnish paradigms. There is also ample evidence for one Finnish paradigm having its parallels in two or more types in Estonian. This is the case, for instance, in the two-syllable e contracted nouns and contracted verbs. In addition, a path of development in Estonian may also have led to merging of two paradigm types, such as the coalescence of us quality terms and action terms. / Tiivistelmä Tarkastelen tutkimuksessani kontrastiivisesti suomen ja viron taivutusmorfologiaa niiden kirjakielisen edustuksen pohjalta. Lähtökohdiltaan työni poikkeaa Suomessa yleensä harjoitetusta kontrastiivisesta tutkimuksesta, jossa kohteina ovat olleet tavallisesti suomen ja jonkin usein morfologialtaan köyhemmän indoeurooppalaisen kielen suhteet. Nyt vertailtavina ovat paljolti yhteisen taustan omaavat läheiset sukukielet, suomi ja viro, jotka ovat morfologialtaan rikkaita. Tutkimukseni päämäärä on kahtalainen: ensisijaisena tavoitteena on saada teoreettista tietoa kielten taivutusmorfologisista suhteista, mutta toiseksi myös pedagogisesti hyödynnettävissä olevaa tietoa kielenopetuksen tarpeisiin. Keskeistä on sen selvittäminen, miten ja missä määrin suomi ja viro poikkeavat toisistaan morfologisesti ja mistä erot johtuvat sekä miten muutokset ovat vaikuttaneet kieliin typologisesti. Tulokset osoittavat, että kieliä vertailemalla niistä voidaan saada selville sellaisiakin seikkoja, jotka eivät olisi havaittavissa vain yhteen kieleen keskittymällä. Tutkimukseni teoreettisena viitekehyksenä on luonnollinen morfologia ja tunnusmerkkisyysteoria. Suomen ja viron välillä ilmenee yhteisissäkin kielioppikategorioissa eroja tunnusmerkkisyyssuhteissa. Kontrastiivisen tutkimuksessa on tavallisesti kyse kielten synkronisesta vertailusta. Suomen ja viron morfologisten suhteiden selvittämisessä on osoittautunut tarkoituksenmukaiseksi synkronisten ilmiöiden suhteuttaminen historialliseen taustaan. Tällöin näkyvät kieliä eri suuntaan vieneet strategiset ratkaisut, jotka nyt kuvastuvat synkronisina eroina ja voivat olla osoituksena typologisesta erilaistumisesta. Suomen ja viron morfologisten erojen syynä on usein etenkin virossa tapahtunut kehitys: äänteenmuutokset ovat voineet johtaa kielen muotorakenteessa muutoksiin, myös morfologisiin innovaatioihin. Tärkeitä prosesseja ovat virossa olleet astevaihtelun täydellinen morfologistuminen ja sisäisen taivutuksen synty. Niin ikään eroja on jossain määrin aiheuttanut kielten tietoinen kehittäminen ja normittaminen. Suomen ja viron nominien taivutusmorfologian vertailu osoittaa, että virossa erityisesti yksikön ja monikon genetiivimuodoilla on järjestelmässä huomattavasti keskeisempi asema kuin suomessa. Esitän myös lähemmin, millainen on viron kolmen monikkotyypin suhde suomen kahteen tyyppiin sekä diakronisesti että tunnusmerkkisyyden kannalta. Verbimorfologiassa kielten kesken on tärkeitä eroja muun muassa passiivissa, modusjärjestelmässä, imperfektityyppien suhteissa sekä infiniittimuotojen valikoimassa ja morfologiassa. Virolle leimallista on persoonakategorian heikkeneminen: monet finiittiset verbimuodot ovat vailla persoonapäätettä tai sellainen on valinnainen. Suomen ja viron paradigmatyyppien suhteet osoittautuvat varsin kirjaviksi. Monia suomen kaksivartaloisia sanatyyppejä vastaa virossa yksivartaloiseksi kehittynyt tyyppi. Toisaalta viroon on voinut syntyä sekundaaria konsonanttivartaloisuutta, jollaiselta suomen paradigmoista puuttuu vastine. On myös useita esimerkkejä siitä, että yhtä suomen paradigmatyyppiä, esimerkiksi kaksitavuisia e-supistumanomineja sekä supistumaverbejä, vastaa virossa kaksi tai useampia tyyppejä. Kehitys on virossa voinut johtaa myös kahden paradigmatyypin, kuten us-ominaisuudennimien ja -teonnimien, yhdistymiseen.

”A new Estonian-Swedish identity” ­– An ethnological study of the magazine Kustbon as an arena for mediation and negotiation of Estonian-Swedish identity: The purpose of this master’s thesis is to investigate how the magazine Kustbon constitutes an arena for the mediation and negotiation of Estonian-Swedish identity. Kustbon (Coastal inhabitant) is a magazine published by the Estonian-Swedish cultural association Svenska Odlingens Vänner (Friends of Swedish Cultivation). The magazine has since its beginning functioned as a link for the Estonian-Swedes as a group. It has survived for over 100 years despite various setbacks and different regimes that prevented the publication of the magazine. The material for this thesis consists of the magazine's issues between the years 2001 and 2017. I analyzed them using theoretical concepts such as: identity, ethnicity, diaspora, cultural heritage and imagined communities. As methods of analysis, I have used cultural analysis and discourse analysis. Through them I have been able to show how the texts in Kustbon have reproduced various notions of Estonian-Swedes in relation to Swedes in Sweden (or “rikssvenskar”) and thus communicated a community inwards and distancing outward. I have used theoretical concepts such as identity and ethnicity to analyze the foundations on which the imagined community is created. In the analysis I show the importance and role of Estonia in the magazine's various texts, and how the country can function in different identity forming processes. I have used the theoretical concept of diaspora to discuss the group’s relationship to both Estonia and Sweden. Finally, I have analyzed how recurring historical themes and stories are written in Kustbon, and how these stories work to legitimize the Estonian-Swedes' position and group identity. I also discuss identity creation through modern technology and how genealogy and DNA tests are recurring themes in Kustbon. Furthermore, I discuss how Kustbon writes about their and Svenska Odlingens Vänners problems with recruiting new members and the underlying factors that could lie behind these problems.

Abstract The thesis deals with how Estonians learn Finnish, especially their choices of verbs and rections, and how these are influenced by mother tongue, time spent on study, and the properties of certain verbs. The research data consist of translations given in a language test by 111 Estonian-speaking and 15 Russian-speaking learners of Finnish. In the test they had to translate 175 sentences from Estonian into Finnish. The Estonian-speaking testees’ materials contain 19,425 verb and rection choices, and the Russian-speaking testees’ materials contain 2,625 verb and rection choices. I also attempt to examine the L2 production process, and especially the editions of answers made by learners by the help of Scriptlog data. The data analyses show that the Finnish verb and rection choices are challenging also to advanced Estonian language learners. They get better results in the verb and rection choice test than Russian-speaking testees, but they have problems especially when the verb is infrequent, or when the Estonian and Finnish verbs have different forms or meaning. The rection choice of verbs that have a different case in Estonian and Finnish are also challenging. The learning process of a verb is influenced by frequency, time spent on study, equivalence of the word shape and on certain conditions equivalence of meaning. The learning of rections is influenced by time spent on study, rection case, and on certain conditions, the frequency of the verb. The similarity of the source and target language help the learner, but frequent verbs are, however, easier for the learner despite any other characteristics they have. In teaching, attention should be paid to frequent exposure of the verbs to be learned. Systematic information on the frequency of the verb in communicative situations ought to be collected to support actual teaching and teaching materials. The research shows that the L1 transfer is remarkably more useful than the L2 transfer. Nevertheless, the learner whose mother tongue is Estonian finds learning the precise semantic differences of the meaning of Finnish verbs challenging, because the indirect negative L1 transfer of the Estonian language makes the whole process more difficult. In the teaching of cognate languages, the difference should be made between lexical and semantic development of the vocabulary. / Tiivistelmä Tarkastelen virolaisten suomen kielen oppimista, erityisesti verbin- ja rektionvalintoja sekä oppijan lähtökielen, opiskeluajan ja verbin tiettyjen ominaisuuksien vaikutusta niihin. Tutkimusaineistona ovat 111 vironkielisen ja 15 venäjänkielisen suomenoppijan tuotokset käännöstestissä, jossa tuli kääntää virosta suomeen 175 testilausetta. Vironkielisten aineisto sisältää 19 425 ja venäjänkielisten 2625 verbin- ja rektionvalintaa. Pyrin tarkastelemaan myös toisen kielen tuottamisprosessia ja erityisesti oppijoiden tekemiä vastausten editointeja Scriptlog-aineiston avulla. Aineiston analyysi osoittaa, että suomen kielen verbin- ja rektionvalinnat ovat haastavia myös edistyneille virolaisille kielenoppijoille. He saavat verbin- ja rektionvalintatestissä venäjänkielisiä paremmat tulokset, mutta heillä on vaikeuksia erityisesti silloin, kun verbi on harvinainen tai viron ja suomen verbit ovat muodoltaan tai merkitykseltään erilaisia. Haasteellisia ovat myös sellaisten verbien rektionvalinnat, joilla on virossa ja suomessa eri rektiosija. Verbien oppimiseen vaikuttavat taajuus, opiskeluaika, sanahahmon vastaavuus ja tietyin ehdoin merkitysvastaavuus. Rektioiden oppimiseen vaikuttavat opiskeluaika ja rektiosija sekä tietyin ehdoin verbin taajuus. Lähtö- ja kohdekielen järjestelmien samankaltaisuus helpottaa oppijaa, mutta kielenoppijalle helpoimpia ovat kuitenkin frekventit verbit huolimatta siitä, millaisia muita ominaisuuksia niillä on. Opetuksessa tulisikin kiinnittää huomiota siihen, että opeteltavat sanat kohdataan usein. Viestintätilanteissa käytettyjen sanojen frekvenssistä tulisi kerätä systemaattista tietoa opetuksen ja oppimateriaalin laadinnan tueksi. Tutkimus osoittaa, että L1-transfer on huomattavasti L2-transferia tuloksellisempaa. Siitä huolimatta myös äidinkieleltään vironkielisille oppijoille suomen kielen verbien merkitysten tarkkojen semanttisten erojen oppiminen on haasteellista, koska viron kielen epäsuora negatiivinen L1-transfer vaikeuttaa sitä. Lähisukukielen opetuksessa tulisikin huomioida ero sanaston leksikaalisen ja semanttisen kehityksen välillä.