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301. The Dialectics of Globalisation

Author:
Henri Vogt
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
One of the central objectives of the ever-expanding entrepreneurship of globalisation literature has been to formulate a single, concise definition of the phenomenon of globalisation. Needless to say, this has usually proved a hugely difficult task, if not an impossible one. The strategy of the ensuing pages will therefore be somewhat different. I will start off with an explicit idea of the multiplicity of 'globalisation', that is, from the assumption (or fact) that globalisation covers such a wide range of different issues, attitudes, processes, policies, destinies, and people perceive it in so many different ways that any simple definition of it is doomed to be virtually useless. There is, in other words, no need to bring all these different features and views under a single totalising explication. By contrast, the best way to conceptualise the notion is to do it with the help of all those definitional problems, controversies, disputes and even paradoxes that it seems to entail – that is, with an explicit vagueness of the notion in mind, a vagueness that also implies a great deal of dynamism and continuous change.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, International Political Economy, and Nationalism

302. A Hole in the Wall? Dimensionalism and the EU's "New Neighbourhood Policy"

Author:
Hiski Haukkala
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The successive rounds of enlargements are a factor shaping the European Union. The previous enlargements have all resulted in the broadening of the EU's agenda, changes in the institutions and decision-making, as well as shaping the way in which the world external to the Union has perceived the European integration and its different manifestations, be they institutions or policies. There is dialectic at work, where the “shadow of enlargement” forces the European Union and its member states to adapt its own dynamic to meet the changing circumstances. This adaptation – together with the growing geographic exposure to new neighbours and regions – in turn create an opening and a demand for further enlargements, which then start the dialectic anew.
Topic:
International Organization and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

303. 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

304. Western strategies and the prospect of reforms in the Middle East

Author:
Heidi Huuhtanen
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Reforms in the Middle East have been on the agenda of almost all relevant international organizations and political actors during the recent years. This has been due to the concentration after 9/11 on the domestic conditions in the Muslim world as a source of radicalization. Concentration of domestic problems is a positive step as it has broadened the discussion of sources of security threats and questioned the current policies towards Middle East states and societies. In the public debate the security threat posed by Muslim terrorism to the international community is still largely analyzed out of the domestic context. Western policies and the Israel-Palestinian conflict are seen as the primary reason for radicalization. Muslim relations to the West as well as the issue of Israel surely have their part to play in the domestic setting of the Middle Eastern states and societies, but most analysts and even Islamists themselves agree, that American and Israeli politics – or indeed any other external factors – explain very little of the support for Islamism or radicalization. Instead the radicalization originates in specific political and socio-economic problems in the Muslim countries and the phenomena must be therefore seen as part of intra-Muslim political grievances. External reasons can only add to these already existing internal problems.
Topic:
Civil Society and Development
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

305. Dialogue of Civilisations? The Case of Nepad

Author:
Henri Vogt
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper has two parallel aims. First of all, it seeks to present and critically discuss some central aspects of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) initiative. A programme of the African Union and officially launched in October 2001, NEPAD is a comprehensive, ambitious framework for changing the negative course of development in Africa and for ending the increasing marginalisation of the continent in the global era. In the words of its founding document, 'the Programme is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world' (§1).
Topic:
Development, Government, International Cooperation, International Organization, International Political Economy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa

306. The emperor has some clothes on: fairy tales, scary tales and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author:
Toby Archer
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The debate on the invasion of Iraq revolved around so-called “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD). Thousands of lives were lost, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, alliances fractured, and international relations thrown into turmoil. The debates raged over whether WMD were there or not; whether the UN inspectors should have more time to find them or not; whether Iraq having or seeking WMD justified invasion or not, amongst other issues. There were a myriad of differing positions on the value of the war, but the idea that WMD are a distinct and special class of weapons has remained essentially uncontested.
Topic:
Politics, United Nations, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

307. Strategic Culture and the English School: Conceptualising Strategic Adjustment in the Nordic Region

Author:
Henrikki Heikka
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Nordic region seems to be in the midst of a thorough transformation-process, involving all of the countries in the region as well as the key institutional players. The aim of this paper is to define some of the key concepts needed for understanding and explaining this process. In particular, the paper focuses on sketching a method for differentiating between structural and cultural sources of strategic adjustment. The concept of structure connects the discussion to structural realism, while the concept of culture is linked to the theoretical debates within IR about strategic culture and international society. The method outlined in the paper borrows from Max Weber's use of ideal types and scientific realists' use of iconic modeling. The paper argues for ontological clarity in dealing with causal mechanisms (at the level of the real) that are used to explain grand strategies (at the level of the actual) and their empirical referents such a military doctrine or alliance choices. Three ideal types of strategic culture – realist, liberal, and revolutionary – are suggested as a hermeneutical tool for evaluating the potential effects of causal powers of strategic cultures within strategic thinking.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, International Political Economy, Political Economy, and Politics

308. From a Recipient of Aid Towards an Independent Actor: The Impacts of EU Integration on Estonia's Civil Society

Author:
Kristi Raik
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In recent scholarly and political debates, civil society has often been considered one of the weakest, if not the weakest aspect of democracy in the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). Although the Eastern EU applicant states have been fairly successful in establishing democratic institutions and formal procedures, all of them suffer from political apathy and alienation of the citizens, low public trust in state authorities, and general dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy – even though democracy is valued in principle. In the face of these problems, activation of a sphere of civic initiative and organisation is seen by many analysts as one important means for improving the quality of democracy. Support to the development of civil society has also been an increasingly important aspect of EU policy aimed at strengthening democracy in the Eastern candidate countries. In addition to supporting civic activity in general, the EU has in recent years started to pay attention to the involvement of civil society in the Eastern enlargement process. It has been underlined that in order to guarantee the legitimacy and effectiveness of integration, citizens and nongovernmental actors should play a stronger role in the candidate countries' preparations for EU accession.
Topic:
Democratization and Development
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Estonia

309. Theories at a loss? EU-NATO fusion and the 'low-politicisation' of security and defence in European integration

Author:
Hanna Ojanen
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In the European Union, security and defence integration was for a long time seen as impossible or at least highly unlikely. Theories of European integration leaned complacently on the idea that security and defence policy have a specific character that explains this state of affairs. Yet, recent developments seem seriously to challenge their assumptions: the new joint EU crisis management with military means is bound at least to affect, if not replace, the traditional defence policy of the member states.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, International Organization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

310. Telos or Brick Wall? British Nuclear Posture and European Defence Integration

Author:
Toby Archer
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Somewhere, at this very moment under one of the world's oceans, there is a Royal Navy 'Vanguard' class nuclear powered and armed submarine (SSBN) on patrol. Before it returns to port, another one of the four Vanguard class boats will head out into the deep ocean, meaning that no matter what occurs, Britain will always have an unreachable nuclear counter-strike facility. That one submarine, always out at sea and submerged, is now Britain's whole nuclear deterrent; all other nuclear weapons that Britain held during the Cold War, both land based and air-launched, have been decommissioned and dismantled over the last decade. The UK has the smallest nuclear arsenal of all the five nuclear-armed permanent members of the UN Security Council (it is even believed that Israel – undeclared as a nuclear power – now actually possesses more warheads than the UK does). The number of warheads quoted by the Ministry of Defence is now “fewer than 200”, and estimated by independent sources as likely to be around 160.
Topic:
Defense Policy and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, United Kingdom, and Europe