Pami Aalto

European Energy Security: Natural Gas and the Integration Process

This article explores energy security and integration within the European Union (EU) in the case of natural gas. It theorizes the underlying institutional dynamics of integration by drawing upon the English School as to how more deep-seated informal institutions condition policy-making by EU institutions and Member States as well as the operations of transnational actors such as energy companies. The informal institution of sovereignty constrains the push of the market institution towards a convergent type of integration. Together with the bilateral energy diplomacy and great power management institutions, sovereignty also limits integration in the external gas trade. Internal integration overall remains dependent on the wider European context as is also seen in the functioning of the environmental stewardship institution. The ambiguities among actors occasioned by the implementation of the Third Energy Package suggest a further integration need, but that is constrained by several further driving forces.

Russia's Quest for International Society and the Prospects for Regional-Level International Societies:

This article enters the recent debate on the decline in the features of international society within the current system by looking at the case of Russia; a case that has, to date, received little attention. Russia is considered one of the great powers. It is also characterised by a long-standing quest for membership in international society. In addition, Russia merits closer attention as a result of its strategic partnership with the EU. The EU offers Russia access to regional-level international societies with a thicker set of institutions than are available in its relations with the United States and Asia. The fact that Russia identifies itself with Europe has driven it to experiment with some of the solidarist institutions typifying EU-centred societies, most notably the market. As a result there are tangible prospects for maintaining and even expanding the features of international society at the level of greater Europe regardless of the systemic constraints.

Revisiting the Security/Identity Puzzle in Russo-Estonian Relations:

This article engages the persisting and commonplace claim that post-Soviet politics is imbued with the prevalence of very close linkages between security and identity. Such a claim is often made in analyses of Russo-Baltic relations, where especially the inter-ethnic policies of the ethnic Estonians and Latvians have been found to be in a triadic conflict with the interests of their Russophone minorities and the declared policy preferences of the contemporary Russian Federation. However, this article contests such claims and argues that there are several signs of a gradual erosion of the intense security/identity linkages. First, the article outlines some overall developments in the strategic and politico-economic context that have accounted for a relative accommodation in Russo-Baltic relations. Second, the article enquires into the subjective roots of such accommodation patterns by introducing an in-depth analysis of Russo-Estonian relations that makes use of an intensive fieldwork method, Q methodology. It becomes clear that security/identity linkages, as subjectively perceived by ethnic Estonians and Estonias Russophones, are best understood as varied: in some discourses that issue from these groups, they are very close, but relatively loose in others. Such a variation in security/identity linkages is an important condition for the gradual erosion of tensions that has been taking place in Russo-Estonian relations and in Russo-Baltic relations in general. On the whole, these findings speak to the importance of methodological plurality and case-sensitiveness in the study of the complexities of security/identity linkages.

The Critical Geopolitics of Northern Europe: Identity Politics Unlimited

Critical geopolitics today is a fairly well known body of literature bridging critically oriented aspects of political geography and international relations. Critical geopolitics is probably best known for its critique of the geopolitical practices prevailing at the global level. Issues ranging from global superpower and great power rivalry to technological transformation, global risks and economic and ecological interdependence have been studied in order to reveal the geopolitical factors producing them. As for individual states, we are learning more of how they still tend to monopolise and represent geopolitical identities. These important insights have opened up some fresh and greatly needed perspectives on the processes creating tension and inequalities at the global and the state levels that ultimately result in both state boundaries in the territorial sense and in the symbolic sense between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Yet, it is perhaps not too great an exaggeration to say that critical geopolitics has remained somewhat state-centric in its approach despite serious endeavours to the contrary. Surprisingly enough, the regional level has largely escaped the gaze of critical geopoliticians. Indeed, the regional level – as to how regional entities and formations are spatially delineated and identified – has only very slowly started to attract due attention. Other scholars in both political geography and international relations – operating with broadly understood social constructionist metatheoretical perspectives not too far from the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of critical geopolitics – have for quite some time been engaged with the patterns of region-building and regional characteristics in general. Studies of the institutionalisation of regions and on transitions from regional

Smart and secure borders through automated border control systems in the EU? The views of political stakeholders in the Member States

ABSTRACT The European Commission launched the “Smart Borders” policy process in 2011 to enhance border security in the European Union (EU) using technologisation and harmonisation. This includes the use of automated border control (ABC) systems. The Member States crucially shape the process, weighing security technologies and costs, privacy and rights, and further institutional choices. We examine the views of political stakeholders in four Member States by conducting a systematic empirical and comparative study unprecedented in the existing, political-theory-inspired research. In our Q methodological experiments, political stakeholders in Finland, Romania, Spain and the UK rank-ordered a sample of statements on Smart Borders, ABC and harmonisation. The factor analysis of the results yielded three main views: the first criticising ABC as a security technology, the second welcoming the security gains of automation and the third opposing harmonised border control. While impeding harmonisation, the results offer a consensus facilitating common policy.

Russian nuclear energy diplomacy in Finland and Hungary

Abstract We compare Russian nuclear energy diplomacy toward Finland and Hungary, where the Russian state corporation Rosatom intends to build nuclear power plants by the 2020s. Russian nuclear energy diplomacy features Rosatom working with other state institutions, its own subsidiaries, and an extensive network of companies and R&D actors to support Russian nuclear power projects abroad. Using the structuration approach, we find three interests driving such diplomacy: energy business and associated profits; modernization of the Russian economy, including the diversification of its export structure; while foreign policy interests are also involved, considering the constraints emerging in EU–Russia energy diplomacy in the oil and gas sectors, including the sanctions since 2014. Some domestic actors in Finland and Hungary make the linkage between nuclear energy and foreign policy as explicit as do some Western commentators. Seeking to pursue these interests, Russian actors must accommodate their considerable assets to the structural constraints they encounter in the target countries. We identify four structural dimensions: the Russian actors are well endowed as regards the resources, technology, and infrastructure dimension; and the dimension of finance, business models, and markets. However, on the institutional dimension, they face a less controllable environment. Regarding the ecological dimension, they must conform to local safety requirements. In both cases, Russian actors were able to strengthen perceptions of joint interests with actors in the target country facilitating the nuclear power plant projects, thereby paving the way for the use of soft power.

Modernisation of the Russian Energy Sector: Constraints on Utilising Arctic Offshore Oil Resources

Abstract This essay examines the modernisation of the Russian energy sector as revealed in the case of Arctic offshore oil. The Russian actors involved have various interests but their simultaneous realisation is impeded by the structural constraints within the policy environment of Arctic offshore oil projects. Russia’s foreign policy choices vis-à-vis Ukraine, leading to sanctions targeting Arctic oil projects, and global oil market developments amplify the constraints on the resource geographical, financial, institutional and ecological dimensions of the policy environment or structure. This delays Arctic offshore oil projects, and hampers the oil industry’s modernisation and its capacity to generate income for Russia’s overall modernisation.

The EU, Russia and the Problem of Community

‘European’-Russian relations have always been crucial for peace, welfare and stability both on the European peninsula and in Russia itself. While dealing with and balancing Russia was traditionally left to individual European states or superpower politics, with the enhanced global role of the EU, and the development of its foreign policy, the Union has increasingly assumed the responsibility for these tasks. It is now required to develop coherent and preferably ethical strategies for the relations with its huge Eastern neighbour. An essential question then is: to what extent should the EU pay attention to the consequences that its policies have, or may have, on Russia’s political, economic or social development? In what ways — and ultimately why — is the EU responsible for developments in Russia?

States and Markets in Energy Policy

States and markets are key to energy policy and as such belong to the very core of energy policy analysis. How exactly they are linked is always an empirical puzzle, the solving of which depends on time and geography. As the contributions to this book indicate, it matters where we are. For example, in post-Lisbon Treaty Europe the energy policies of EU member states are slowly but painfully converging as a result of supranational regulation initiated by the member states, forcing more competition among energy market actors. In Asia, by contrast, market actors mostly face regulation by state-level institutions, with emerging sub-regional integration mostly led by multinational companies.

The coordination of policy priorities among regional institutions from the Baltic Sea to the Arctic: the institutions – coordination dilemma

ABSTRACT We examine the coordination of policy priorities among the Arctic Council, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, the Council of Baltic Sea States, and the Nordic Council of Ministers. The member states of these groups established these institutions to coordinate their regional cooperation. However, the member states ended up having to coordinate the parallel work of these institutions. This coordination effort influenced their cooperation, creating an institutional coordination dilemma. We analyze how interests, leadership, and identity politics influence this dilemma and how negative, problem-solving, and positive forms of coordination can amend its effects regarding the temporal consistency of policy priorities and their sectoral overlap.