The aim of the article is to introduce and provide evidence of using a novel type of indicators (evil invariables) when tackling the negative phenomena spreading in the population of Estonia. According to the working definition, evil invariable is "a numerical indicator, which describes the prevalence of a certain unfavourable social process and participants therein inadequately, because it has been constructed proceeding from hidden goals". The article highlights the main characteristics of the evil invariables and the specificities of construing thereof; it also presents hierarchy of evil invariables, relying on size and their proportion to the whole population. The evil invariables are compared to moral panic, focussing on similarities and differences of those phenomena. At length three prominent evil invariables related to Estonia: the number of Russian citizens, the number of the HIV infected persons and the number of victims of trafficking in humans, were considered.

Evil invariables moral panic Social construction Estonia

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