Today I learned a valuable lesson: don’t leave your suitcase open on the floor if you live with two cats who are curious and shed constantly. You might want to ask why I’d have the suitcase open in the first place. Well, I was running around the house in my chaotic process of packing it, as in two days’ time, I’ll fly to Estonia for a month of fieldwork.
Until recently, the word fieldwork felt a bit abstract to me—and to others as well. A friend once asked if I’d be spending my time harvesting potatoes. Fair question, but likely not ;). Luckily, over the past months, this ‘fieldwork’ has taken on more concrete forms. I’ve booked flights, sorted accommodation, and arranged for student assistants to help with translation. On Monday morning, I’ll start my fieldwork with an introduction at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies in Tartu, followed by a meeting with my student assistants to map out the week ahead.
So why this fieldwork in Estonia? My broader research objective is to test whether increased exposure to Russian state-affiliated media influences voting behavior—specifically, whether it shifts support toward authoritarian parties. Estonia makes a fascinating case: it’s an EU member with a Soviet past and a sizable Russian-speaking minority. And in the 2023 elections, the right-wing authoritarian party EKRE won 16.83% of the seats—creating a highly relevant puzzle for my research.
In recent weeks, I’ve conducted an online survey in Estonia with 1,000 participants. This data will be central to the next papers I write for my PhD. However, writing about Estonia based only on multiple-choice answers given anonymously and online seemed a bit shallow to me. This is why I want to spend some time in Estonia and gain more insights about the country that I will be writing about.
For the next month, I’ll be based in Tartu for three weeks, conducting interviews with both citizens and experts. In my final week, I’ll travel to Narva, a city on the border with Russia, for additional citizen interviews.
I plan to share a short weekly update while I’m there, so stay tuned!