Ilkka Liikanen

Civil Society and the 'Neighbourhood' Europeanization through Cross-Border Cooperation?

Abstract This collaborative study pursues a dual objective. On the one hand, it focuses on the actual and potential roles of civil society in developing new forms of political, economic and socio‐cultural cooperation within the emerging ‘European Neighbourhood’. On the other hand, through this investigation of civil society networks it contributes to the ‘Europeanization’ debate with regard to the influence of the EU in civil society development in neighbouring states and on cross‐border civil society interaction within the neighbourhood context. This will include a comparative analysis of perceptions of the EU and its role in empowering civil society as related by civil society actors. The rationale for this collection of essays is thus defined by the transformation of political relationships between the 27‐member European Union and countries in its immediate vicinity. Based on research funded by the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme, the authors will perform this investigation by analysing cooperation processes, the multi‐level contexts within which they operate and, perhaps most importantly, the role of the EU in conditioning civil society relationships within the Neighbourhood.

New Neighbourhood and Cross-Border Region-Building: Identity Politics of CBC on the Finnish-Russian Border

Abstract This paper examines European cross‐border region‐building from the perspective of identity politics. How is cross‐border regionalization conceptualized in the documents outlining EU policies of cross‐border cooperation? How do these definitions meet, challenge and clash with the understandings of territoriality and identity on the regional level? The analysis is built on three case studies that examine the conceptualizations of supra‐national, national, and regional territoriality in the case of Karelia, the historical region situated on the Finnish‐Russian border. According to the results, the perceptions of local actors do not bear witness to the birth of a strong regional cross‐border identity. In the Russian and Finnish border areas, more intensive cross‐border co‐operation can hardly be seen as proof of new European cross‐border regionalism. As a conclusion, it is suggested, that instead of promoting above‐given Europeanness, EU policies of CBC should be more open to the many European ways of combining regional, national and supranational perspectives, and avoid rhetoric equating cross‐border regionalization and Europeanization.

Civil Society and the Reconstitution of Russian Political Space: the Case of the Republic of Karelia

Ever since the early days of perestroika prophecies of the emergence of civil society in Russia have been a prime subject of the academic discussion on late and post-Soviet politics. At the same time, the end of Russian civil society and of Russian democratization have been predicted constantly since the collapse of the Soviet system. Questions of this kind have also inspired high-level political discussion, for instance in the European Parliament, and provoked open letters to world leaders by prominent politicians, scholars and ex-government officials.

Territoriality, State, and Nationality in the Making of Borders of Finland: The Evolving Concept of Border in the Peace Treaties between Russia and Sweden, 1323-1809

uropean political language, state, territoriality and nationality. With the theoretical discussions in conceptual history as starting point, the paper illustrates how a concept of state, separated from the person of the ruler, emerges in mediaeval and early modern peace treaties, and how the estates of the ruler gradually gain status as political units. With special focus on how notions of a linear state border were attached to the territory of Finland, the paper discusses broader processes of the development of ideas of territorial state and linear state borders. The paper asks how and at which political junctures new understandings of sovereignty appear in the treaties between Russia and s weden and how international recognition of territorial integrity and the rights of citizens were introduced as part of the relations between the two countries. The broader aim of the paper is to contribute to a comparative discussion on how state-making and bordering processes in the e uropean North were linked to political modernization, and how and to what degree the redefinition of borders and territories were connected to new kinds of conceptualizations of state, sover

Educational and Political Capital and the Breakthrough of Voluntary Association in Russian Karelia

In October 1989, just two weeks before the collapse of the Berlin wall, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu visited East Berlin. In his lecture to East German students he further elaborated some of the main themes of his famous book The Distinction. Bourdieu asked himself whether the theoretical model presented in the book could also be applied in the DDR, and on what conditions. His brief reconsiderations open an interesting perspective on late-communist societies, and especially on the role that education and educational capital played in them.