Corporate chambers (Estonia)


Corporate chambers were a series of corporate institutions in Estonia during the interwar period. The first of these – the Chamber of Commerce and Industry – was created in 1924, and the second, the Chamber of Agriculture, followed in 1931. However, most of the chambers were established after the 1934 coup d'état of Konstantin Päts, and the Era of Silence which followed the coup became their heyday.
The main proponent of the formation of the chambers was indeed Päts – according to his political views, a nation should be organized not by political views into parties, but by vocation into respective chambers. Päts had promoted the idea of corporate chambers already in 1918, shortly after the Republic of Estonia had been established, but the idea did not gain support at the time. Both of the earlier chambers were however formed during time when Päts was head of government. After the 1934 coup Päts established a moderate authoritarian regime, in which corporate chambers were deemed to play an important role. A corporative system, based on the example of Fascist Italy, was to replace the inherently unstable multi-party system. Fifteen more chambers were established between 1934 and 1936, bringing the total number to 17. The chambers also took part in legislative work – according to the 1937 constitution, 16 out of 40 seats in the upper chamber of the parliament were allocated to them.
All the corporate chambers were disbanded between 13 and 31 July 1940, about a month after Soviet Union occupied Estonia.

List of chambers