Norden beyond Norden – region-work in the margins

2013

2009

The first decade of the 21 century approaches its end and now it is possible to recognize clear signs of returning of visionary thinking to depict the Baltic Sea Area (BSA). The BSA has again become politically attractive. At the moment the most prominent sign of the return of the BSA into political agenda is the European Union’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. High hopes but also skepticism have been associated with the strategy during an intensive and in many parts extraordinary era of planning. In this article the current revival of the BSA is compared with ‘golden days’ of the Baltic Sea cooperation in the 1990s and the main changes since then are pointed out. Introduction: a model region? When the first decade of the 21 century approaches its end it is possible to recognize clear signs of returning of visionary thinking to depict the Baltic Sea Area (BSA). In December 2007 Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks powerfully narrated the BSA again as necessity for the future o...

2018

The development and evolution of the international community surrounding the Nordic countries has a natural impact on their cooperation.

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, 2012

The political changes of 1989 stimulated a new perception and perspective of the Baltic Sea Region. And this gained momentum with the Eastern Enlargement of the EU. The new situation encouraged research as well. In this context the “Baltic Sea” is not an unchangeable physical setting, but also a construction of different actors or protagonists. People and powers continuously reinvent the Baltic Sea Region. That is why; the following paper focuses on the different notions of the Baltic Sea Region from the Middle Ages up to now and also examines the recent EU-Strategy of this region.

The 'greater Nordic space' between Great Britain, Germany and Russia has over time varied with the balance of power. The Baltic States e.g. have been in and out of the space, rejoining by regaining sovereignty after the end of the Cold War. Russia's actions in Ukraine and beyond during 2014 mark the end of the Post-Cold War period and its aspiration to peaceful integration. The small states of the greater Nordic space are now rediscovering their inescapable geopolitical nearness to Russia. Drawing on RSCT and Nordic-Baltic integration literature, the article contributes to understanding the Northern European part of the Euro-Russian Regional Security Complex. Theoretically, the article links RSCT and integration logics through the twin concepts of a 'security region' (given outside-in as one part of a negatively defined RSC), and a 'political region' (created inside-out under the shield provided by the security region). To link the two concepts, Heidegger's idea of Geworfenheit, or thrownness, is employed to capture how the states of the greater Nordic space are always already subject to the dynamics underlying that space and how this condition affects the states' interpretation of their changing surroundings, including translation into political regionality. Empirically, the article therefore argues that Russia's new foreign policy has created a greater Nordic space 'security region' – supported by the United States – that is paving the way for new integration initiatives to a strengthened 'political region' inside the space, possibly as a 'greater Nordic region' .

2007

Since the end of the Cold War the international system has become multi-polar and complex as far as actors and subjects who wish to be involved in international cooperation need to act in several circles of internationalisation at the same time. The dynamics of migration and expatriation, the overlaps of geography and language and national identity, have made of it a bewildering territory that does not neatly correspond to any of the maps at our

2002

How to define a region Administrative state borders are an obvious way to structure the world. But there are many other demarcations than political ones to be used when structuring the world. If we use the human dimension, the people living in the world, then language, culture, religion can all be used to define regions. The physical shape of the world, the landscape or the waterscape, is another principle to make up regions. In the mixture of water and land, we see continents, islands, coasts, lakes, and rivers, we see mountains, deserts, forests, plains and so on. Regional geography deals with these features. Yet another way to structure the world is the biology, the life forms living in the world. The biologists define life zones, each of which is inhabited by a characteristic collection of species of plants and animals. Biologists talk about bio-geographical zones, sometimes vegetation zones or-in American jargon-biomes. Examples of such zones are the arctic zone, the pine forest, also called the boreal zone or taiga, and the broad-leaved forest zone if we focus on northern Europe. Further south there are the tropical forests, deserts etc. IntroductIonhow to study a regIon The Baltic Sea Region and the relevance of regional approaches 9 2. How water can define a region What about the Baltic Sea region (BSR), what is it? It may be defined in several ways. One way is to look at the sea and the areas close to the beaches of the Baltic Sea itself. We will then end up in a region consisting mostly of the sea itself. This was the approach taken when the first international agreement on the BSR in "modern" times was written, in 1974, the Convention of the protection of the Baltic Sea. The organisation set up to work with it, which is hosted by Finland and situated in Helsinki, is known as the Helsinki Commission, Helcom. The focus of the Convention was on the sea itself, and activities like shipping were important. A considerable monitoring activity regarding the Baltic Sea was agreed on in the convention and thus Helcom became an unusually lively contact point for the countries around the Baltic Sea during the Cold War. Geographically it makes more sense to include not only the coasts of the sea but also the inland connected to the sea through waterways and rivers. This land is called the drainage basin of the sea, or the catchment or watershed in American jargon. Geographically, a region was classically very often defined in this way-a drainage basin. There were several reasons. Conditions within the basin were often comparable. Historically, travels were most easily made on water and therefore interaction in the region often dominated over those with the world outside the drainage basin, in both peace and war. In Europe there are six large sea basins. These are the areas draining to the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and finally the White Sea and Barents Sea basins. The classical Mediterranean region might be the best known of these. In the world as a whole it is possible to point to 60 such areas connected to a local sea or other larger water body. Well known are, for instance, the Great Lakes district in the USA, the Lake Victoria region in Eastern Africa and the Gulf of Thailand in Southeast Asia. These basins are often international. The Baltic Sea region contains, in addition to the 9 coastal states, 5 inland states with larger or smaller areas draining to the Baltic Sea. The Great Lakes district in North America holds 12 US states and Canadian provinces, and Lake Victoria in Africa five states, in their respective basins. The Baltic Sea It should be noted that the definition of the Baltic Sea is not given a priori. The Sea may be delineated in several ways. The so-called Baltic proper is the water south of Åland and east of Denmark. This body of water is in constant exchange with waters around it in the north, south and east. These waters were included in the Baltic Sea convention in 1974. They are the Bothnian Bay, the Bothnian Sea, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Belt Sea. Kattegat, north of the Öresund, was also included, although Kattegat may easily be included in the North Sea. Kattegat is marine and salty, but it has much in common with the Baltic Sea when it comes to its environmental situation, since it is shallow and threatened by a large influx of polluted water from its drainage area which is mostly agricultural. In this way the area defined in the Convention includes seven interconnected water bodies. Delineating the Baltic Sea in this way is today in common use. Map 1. See map The main sea regions of the world on p. I. Ill.: Radosław Przebitkowski

2000

uniting rather than dividing its littoral states. The Baltic can now serve to mediate rather than obstruct contacts, and to open up routes of transport and communication previously closed 2. The unification of Germany and the disintegration of the USSR have also transformed the geopolitics of the region. As a Royal Danish Naval Commander noted, with German unification, one littoral state disappeared from the Baltic and a former Baltic great power reemerged 3. With the disintegration of the USSR, the three Baltic Republics have regained their independence and sovereignty, and Russian territory has been reduced to two enclaves, St. Petersberg and Kaliningrad. This Russian presence on the Baltic is particularly significant because this region is now the only place where Russia is really in direct contact with the West. It is in the Baltic Sea region, therefore, that Russia's role as a major European is truly in evidence. Russia's behaviour in the region will therefore be of great significance for its wider role and acceptance in Europe. In this respect, Russian policy towards the three Baltic republics will be especially important. As Carl Bildt has argued, 'Russia's policies towards the Baltic countries will the litmus test of its new direction', and 'Russia's conduct towards these states will show the true nature of Russia's commitment to international norms and principles' 4. With the end of the cold war and the peeling back of superpower 'overlay' 5 , therefore, traditional patterns of cooperation and conflict have resurfaced in the Baltic Sea region. Historical, cultural and linguistic relationships are being re-established between states on the southeastern and northwestern rims of the Baltic. Yet this does not signify simply that the region is returning 'back to the future'. Rather, traditional cultural links and historical relationships are re-emerging in a very different context than before the onset of the cold war. Europe itself-including much of northern Europe-has been transformed by multilateral institutional integration, economic interdependence and informal networks of societal communication and exchange. Whilst international relations in the Baltic Sea region are strongly coloured by historical patterns of cooperation and conflict, they are also being 2 'Die Nachricht vom Untergang der Fähre "Estonia" bringt uns schlagartig zum Bewußtsein, daß der Wochenentrip von Stockholm über die Ostsee nach Tallinn für Tausende inzwischen zur Routine geworden istdas mare balticum als o wieder als Verkehrs-und Kommunikationsraum'.

The 'greater Nordic space' between Great Britain, Germany and Russia has over time varied with the balance of power. The Baltic States e.g. have been in and out of the space, rejoining by regaining sovereignty after the end of the Cold War. Russia's actions in Ukraine and beyond during 2014 mark the end of the Post-Cold War period and its aspiration to peaceful integration. The small states of the greater Nordic space are now rediscovering their inescapable geopolitical nearness to Russia. Drawing on RSCT and Nordic-Baltic integration literature, the article contributes to understanding the Northern European part of the Euro-Russian Regional Security Complex. Theoretically, the article links RSCT and integration logics through the twin concepts of a 'security region' (given outside-in as one part of a negatively defined RSC), and a 'political region' (created inside-out under the shield provided by the security region). To link the two concepts, Heidegger's idea of Geworfenheit, or thrownness, is employed to capture how the states of the greater Nordic space are always already subject to the dynamics underlying that space and how this condition affects the states' interpretation of their changing surroundings, including translation into political regionality. Empirically, the article therefore argues that Russia's new foreign policy has created a greater Nordic space 'security region' – supported by the United States – that is paving the way for new integration initiatives to a strengthened 'political region' inside the space, possibly as a 'greater Nordic region' .

Global Affairs, 2018

This epilogue offers a critical reflection on the key findings of the six articles in this special issue on "Nordicness" in foreign policy. It engages with the theoretical issues in studying regional security communities, both in terms of the utility of role theory and the implications of the literature on strategic culture for the concept of security culture which this study of Nordicness uses. The main argument developed here is the need to combine analysis of material and ideational factors in order to fully understand the dynamics of Nordicness in security policy. The article also identifies the key dilemmas and ambiguities of Nordic defence cooperation, and the pivotal role of Sweden in determining the future evolution of a shared Nordic foreign policy identity.

2016

After the fall of the Iron Curtain the Baltic Sea region became the object of region-making efforts. They tended to favour border-defying categories, not only as the object of research, but also its result, in the sense of creating in the region a network of transfer of ideas, common regional concepts, and scholarly cooperation. However, setting out to map these epistemological networks, similarly as others constructed in the region throughout the twentieth century, one notices that they often do not in fact encompass the entire region. The aim of this paper is to discuss the limits of transfer of ideas in and about the Baltic Sea region, and the challenges of making sense of this absence.

2015

Book reviews Geschichte, Politik und Kultur im Ostseeraum (The Baltic Sea Region: Northern Dimensions – European Perspectives, Bd. 12). Hrsg. von Jan HECKEL-STAMPEHL, Bernd HENNINGSEN. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2012. – 252 S. ISBN 978-3-8305-1768-9 GRZECHNIK, Marta. Regional Histories and Historical Regions. The Concept of the Baltic Sea Region in Polish and Swedish Historiographies (Geschichte, Erinnerung, Politik. Posener Studien zur Geschichts-, Kultur- und Politikwissenschaft, Bd. 3). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012. – 186 pp. ISBN 978-3-631-63172-0; ISSN 2191-3528

Cooperation and Conflict, 2003

The article discusses possible new meanings of the Scandinavian, or 'Nordic', region after the reappearance of the three Baltic republics as independent states. Estonian foreign policy-makers in particular have made several attempts to change the public image of their country by re-defining it as part of the Nordic, rather than the Baltic, region. Examples of such attempts are discussed; they are based on a stress on the country's Northern historical and cultural heritage, and are motivated by a wish to become regarded as promising cooperation partners with the West. However, the everyday Nordic cooperation is based on the participating countries' similar choice of basic economic policies. Estonia's attempts at becoming 'Nordic' have not been accompanied by efforts to adopt an economic policy reminiscent of the Scandinavian model.

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, 2013

The longest standing formal cooperation across the Baltic Sea is the Nordic Cooperation. It is composed of five countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland plus the three autonomous territories Faroe Islands, Greenland and Aland. We are approximately 25 million people, as a region among the 10 biggest economies globally, and with 8 official languages. Cooperation between the Nordic countries is one of the most comprehensive regional partnerships found anywhere in the world. It is based on common values and the will to generate dynamic development in a sustainable manner. “United, but not uniform” is the essence of Nordic philosophy. Ours is a region where people can move freely, live under equal conditions and enjoy equal rights. Our inter-parliamentary body Nordic Council was created already in 1952 and our inter-governmental body Nordic Council of Ministers in 1971. The essence of their work is to create synergies that benefit the region’s citizens. Let us mention some...