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51. What Is New About Today's EU-Russia Border?

Author:
Vadim Kononenko
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
On May 1st 2004, the EU reshaped its eastern borders by taking on board ten new member states. Among the many neighbours the EU meets across its enlarged borders, Russia occupies a very specific place. With all the talk about the emerging new EU neighbourhood, one may find it paradoxical that Russia is regarded as one of these new neighbours. There seems to be nothing new about Russia and the EU being neighbours, as they have had a common border for nine years already, since the accession of Finland to the EU in 1995. In this regard, the border that emerged in 2004 can be seen as simply a continuation of the existing 1300-km borderland in the north and as a result of the long-planned accession of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to the European Union. Added to this is the notion that, for all these countries, the existence of a border with Russia had become a reality more than a decade ago, after every legal and political tie with the dissolving Soviet Union had forever been severed. Later, as preparations for these countries to join the Union got underway, they, in order to comply with the EU's Copenhagen criteria for the new applicants, were to transform their external borders and policies according to the EU's Schengen acquis.
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Poland, Lithuania, Soviet Union, Latvia, and Northern Europe

52. Russia and Europe: A Finnish View

Author:
Henrikki Heikka
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In recent months, several prominent Finnish politicians have criticized the Finnish government for lack of vision in its foreign policy. Liisa Jaakonsaari, Chairman of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee and a prominent social democrat), has argued that the government “lacks one thing, and with it, everything: a vision”. Member of the European Parliament Alexander Stubb (the Conservative party's vote puller in the last EP elections) has publicly called contemporary Finnish foreign policy as “pitiful tinkering” (säälittävää näpertelyä). Editorial writers have begun to recycle the old the term “driwftwood” (ajopuu), a term originally coined to describe Finland's flip-flopping during World War II, in their attempts to find an appropriate label for the present government's foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, Diplomacy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Finland, and Asia

53. Russian Foreign Policy Think Tanks in 2002

Author:
Katri Pynnöniemi
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This report provides a general picture of research institutes working in the areas of foreign and security policy in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the following, I will briefly discuss changes in research financing and the consequent reorganisation of the research community. After this, major changes in the study of international relations in Russia are also discussed. A list of the most important research institutes in Moscow and St. Petersburg is appended to the report. In addition, information is provided on the forums and publications of most importance in the foreign-policy debate.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Non-Governmental Organization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Moscow

54. From Yugoslavia to Iraq: Russia's Foreign Policy and the Effects of Multipolarity

Author:
Vadim Kononenko
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to analyze the evolution and political implications of Russia's doctrine of multipolarity. Multipolarity emerged as one of the earliest doctrinal solutions to the post-Soviet Russian foreign policy dilemma, and has remained essential for Russia's strategic behavior since the early 1990s. The multipolarity doctrine describes the post-Cold War world and Russia's place in it. As I argue in this study, Russian “multipolarity” – (the idea of the multipolar world; the vision of Russia as one of its 'poles'; and the understanding of the principles of international politics in the strict terms of realpolitik) is not an ideological resource for Russia's foreign policy but rather, a result of learning how to secure the country' s international status given the scarcity of foreign policy resources available, and the drastic change in the international institutional position of Russia. To sum up the central argument of this study: the multipolarity of Russian foreign policy – both a doctrinal strategy and foreign policy practice – has evolved as a template-like foreign policy approach to solve Russia's strategic dilemma since the demise of the Soviet Union: how to secure its place in the new international structure and compensate for the loss of the international arrangements that disappeared with Soviet might and the bipolar international system as a whole.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, Iraq, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Soviet Union, and Balkans

55. At the Crossroads of Post-Communist Modernisation: Russia and China in Comparative Perspective

Author:
Linda Jakobson and Christer Pursiainen
Publication Date:
02-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
“Modernity ends when words like progress, advance, development, emancipation, liberation, growth, accumulation, enlightenment, embetterment, avant-garde, lose their attraction and their function as guides to social action.” By this definition, Russia and China are both still undertaking extensive modernisation – though by very different means. Why have Russia and China chosen such different paths for their post-communist transitions? How do their strategies differ, and how are they interrelated? When – at what junctures - were the crucial choices made?
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, and Asia

56. Soft security problems in Northwest Russia and their implications for the outside world. A framework for analysis and action

Author:
Christer Pursiainen, Pekka Haavisto, and Nikita Lomagin
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Ten years after the end of the Cold War, the traditional security dilemma based on the perception of a military threat between Russia and the West has largely given way to a variety of new challenges related to non-military security, so-called soft security threats. These threats are not merely problems internal to Russia, but constitute existing or potential problems for other countries as well.
Topic:
Defense Policy and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

57. Two Reluctant Regionalizers? The European Union and Russia in Europe's North

Author:
Hiski Haukkala
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
It has become something of a cliché to argue that the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in dramatic changes in the unfolding of political space in the 1990s. Yet this was especially true in the case of the then European Community (EC) and its relations with the Soviet Union/Russian Federation. During the Cold War, the relations between the EC and the USSR were practically non-existent. The ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev and the period of perestroika and glasnost resulted, however, in a gradual rapprochement between the two parties. The creation of these new ties was formalized in the signing of a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between the EC and the USSR, which was, however, in effect signed with an already crumbling Soviet Union as it took place as late as 21 December 1989.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

58. The Evolution of Russian Grand Strategy -- Implications for Europe's North

Author:
Henrikki Heikka
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
A study about Russian grand strategy is certain to raise more than a few eyebrows among observers of Russian foreign policy. How can one possibly assume that in a country with constantly changing prime ministers and an economy on the verge of bankruptcy there could be a commonly accepted Grand Plan about anything? Moreover, the record of post-cold war Russian foreign policy is so full of reckless moves and unpredictable u-turns, that it seems rather far-fetched to suggest that there could be, even in theory, a common logic behind it. Judging by the steady flow of publications on the role of self-interested politicians, parties, business elites, and organizational and bureaucratic actors in the formation of Russian foreign policy, it does indeed seem that most scholars see Russia's external policy driven by the day-to-day power struggles of various groups within the Russian political elite rather than by a common national strategy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

59. A Security and Stability in Northern Europe – A Threat Assesment

Author:
Jochen Prantl
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The accession of Finland and Sweden as well as the ongoing enlargement process, which offers the perspective of EU membership to the Baltic States, has put the question of security and stability in Northern Europe on the Agenda of the European Union.
Topic:
Security and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Finland, Asia, and Sweden

60. Blazing New Trails: Villagers' Committee Elections in P. R. China

Author:
Linda Jakobson
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Though the Chinese Communist Party clings to its monopoly on power and fully intends to avoid “walking down the road of the Soviet Union,” it is implementing revolutionary political reform in the countryside. For the past decade, multi-candidate elections, in which candidates need not be members of the Communist Party, have been held in hundreds of thousands of Chinese villages. Abdicating its prerogative to appoint village chiefs, the Party has conceded that elected ones are more effective. The grassroots-level governance reform (jiceng zhengquan gaige) not only empowers ordinary citizens and encourages them to take part in the decision-making process. It also institutionalizes the concepts of accountability and transparency.
Topic:
Democratization and Government
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Soviet Union