What Went Wrong and What Right for the EU in Ukraine?

The severe crisis and consequent conflict and even war in and over Ukraine have resulted in severe soulsearching in key Western actors and institutions, the European Union (EU) included. This is hardly a surprise that the collapse of Yanukovych and the events that followed took by and large the whole Western scholarly and diplomatic community by surprise. By annexing the Crimean peninsula and incorporating it swiftly into its federal structure Russia has not only shown its acute displeasure with how things have been developing in Ukraine and Eastern Europe but has also thrown down the gauntlet, essentially questioning and consequently challenging the very foundations of European (security) order and indeed international law

Täydellinen tutkija? Turbulentin maailman ja kansainvälisen politiikan välisestä suhteesta

Ei abstraktia

Listening in a Masspersonal Context : Examining Professional Diplomats’ Interaction Involvement on Twitter

Listening has become a key concept in practicing public diplomacy on social media. This study explores professional diplomats’ listening on Twitter, operationalizing their listening behavior as interaction involvement (II). II is related to knowing when and how to use language in social situations, and it covers three crucial aspects of listening: attentiveness, perceptiveness, and responsiveness. The present study examines the relationship between diplomats’ interaction involvement and their perceptions of how their goals are being met by their use of Twitter. Survey data were collected from participants (N = 108) who were diplomats from five Northern European countries stationed at each country’s foreign embassies. As hypothesized, the data revealed a positive association between II and perceived goal attainment. Moreover, active tweeting and the following of other users do not alone determine successful impact, but listening skills related to relational awareness and responsiveness are at least as important, if not more important.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Globaalitalouden haasteet Suomelle vuoteen 2030

Raportti tarkastelee kansainvälisen talouden keskeisiä kehityskulkuja ja murroskohtia seuraavan kahden vuosikymmenen kuluessa ja pohtii Suomen mahdollisuuksia sopeutua niihin. Talouskasvua ylläpitävä teknologinen kehitys tulee edelleen jatkumaan sikäli kuin riittävät yhteiskunnalliset edellytykset ja kannusteet sekä työnteolle että yrittämiselle säilyvät. Vaurauden lisääntymisen ohella talouden kasvuvauhdin vaihtelut tulevat kuitenkin kasvamaan. Globaalitalouden keskeiset haasteet liittyvät tuloerojen kasvuun sekä talouden ylikansalliseen hallintaan tarvittavien instituutioiden rakentamiseen. Kansallisella tasolla muutoskyvyn merkitys kasvaa. Kehittyvien talouksien, kuten Kiinan ja Venäjän, täytyy pystyä muuttamaan taloutensa rakenteita, jotta niiden vaurastuminen voi jatkua. Suomella on mahdollisuudet menestyä taloudellisesti myös jatkossa. Tämä edellyttää kuitenkin talouden valmiuksien jatkuvaa parantamista. Erityisesti työmarkkinoiden reagointikykyä pitäisi lisätä ja koulutusjärjestelmää kehittää. Innovaatiot ovat Suomen talouden kasvun edellytys. Julkinen innovaatiopolitiikka ei saa olla liian ohjaavaa ja holhoavaa, vaan sen on keskityttävä innovoinnin edellytysten luomiseen yrityksissä. Kansalaisten keskinäinen ja talouden instituutioihin kohdistuva luottamus on tärkeä sopeutumista edistävä voimavara, jonka ei pidä antaa rapautua. Kansainvälisellä tasolla on Suomen edun mukaista edistää sekä globaalin yhteistyön vahvistamista että Euroopan unionin sisäisten rakenteiden kehittämistä. Raporttiin sisältyy täydentävä kommenttikirjoitus

Geostrategies of the European neighbourhood policy

The debate about the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has, in essence, been about borders and bordering. Such departures could contribute — and often do so — to a rather fixed geopolitical vision of what the EU is about and how it aims to run and to organize the broader European space. However, this article aims to retain space for viewing the ENP as a developmental and somewhat fluid process. A conceptual framework, based on outlining three geopolitical models and a series of different geopolitical strategies employed by the EU in regard to its borders, is hence employed in order to be able to tell a more dynamic story regarding the developing nature of the ENP and the EU's evolving nature more generally. The complexity traced informs us that various geostrategies may be held at the same time at the external border. Moreover, the dominance of one geostrategy may be replaced by another or a different combination of them with regard to the same neighbourhood. It is, more generally, argued that if anything it is precisely this dynamism that should be championed as a valuable resource, avoiding the tendency to close off options through the reification of particular visions of the nature of the EU and its borders

The Cold Peace: Russo-Western Relations as a Mimetic Cold War

In 1989–1991 the geo-ideological contestation between two blocs was swept away, together with the ideology of civil war and its concomitant Cold War played out on the larger stage. Paradoxically, while the domestic sources of Cold War confrontation have been transcended, its external manifestations remain in the form of a ‘legacy’ geopolitical contest between the dominant hegemonic power (the United States) and a number of potential rising great powers, of which Russia is one. The post-revolutionary era is thus one of a ‘cold peace’. A cold peace is a mimetic cold war. In other words, while a cold war accepts the logic of conflict in the international system and between certain protagonists in particular, a cold peace reproduces the behavioural patterns of a cold war but suppresses acceptance of the logic of behaviour. A cold peace is accompanied by a singular stress on notions of victimhood for some and undigested and bitter victory for others. The perceived victim status of one set of actors provides the seedbed for renewed conflict, while the ‘victory’ of the others cannot be consolidated in some sort of relatively unchallenged post-conflict order. The ‘universalism’ of the victors is now challenged by Russia's neo-revisionist policy, including not so much the defence of Westphalian notions of sovereignty but the espousal of an international system with room for multiple systems (the Schmittean pluriverse)

Russia of Challenges

In 2007 the Ministry of Defence conducted the research project Stable Russia – an evaluation of the security situation in Finland’s neighbourhood. The goal of the project was to paint an all-round picture of the factors affecting stability in Russia as well as possible destabilizing developments which could alter the security situation close to the Finnish borders. The project comprehensively tapped into Finnish Russia-expertise. This publication is based on the reports written for that project