Teemu Palosaari

Security and Marginality Arctic Europe after the Double Enlargement

It is argued in this article that after the EU and NATO shift of attention towards eastern Europe, Arctic Europe is again at a turning point behind which a remarginalization and a silent remilitarization (which is often advanced in terms of environmental protection) loom. After a decade during which time the region enjoyed considerable international attention other than military, it is now facing the possibility of a loss in attention resulting from both the Northern Dimension’s development towards, or replacement by, an Eastern Dimension and the decrease in US interest in northern Europe. Yet, marginalization may also be seen as a possibility for the Arctic to regain its own political subjectivity which, resuming lines of thought introduced in the early 1990s, may be understood in terms of a universal Arctic.

The Arctic Paradox (and How to Solve It). Oil, Gas and Climate Ethics in the Arctic

This chapter looks at Arctic oil and gas development from the viewpoint of global climate ethics. The purpose is to analyze how topical issues related to climate justice and responsibility are covered in the current Arctic discourse. The analysis focuses on Arctic discussions on new oil and gas resources that become accessible as the sea-ice melts. It has been argued that the development of oil and gas resources in the Arctic is incompatible with the efforts to limit average global warming to 2 °C (McGlade and Ekins in Nature 517:187–190, 2015). Consequently, the way in which problems and solutions regarding Arctic oil and gas are defined and promoted has global significance.

Book Review: Remaking Europe in the Margins: Northern Europe after the Enlargements

It has become almost a stereotypical picture that the European North is an area of innovative and rapid regionalization, with various forms of transnational linkages, cultural exchange and cross-border cooperation. Part of the picture is that regionalization has been supported by a certain amount of idealism — present among academics, too — that ‘the old divides and suspicions could be replaced by building a new sense of regional community’ (p. 206). However, this book edited by Christopher Browning should help us realize that the golden age of regionalization is over and that the postmodern playground in the North has been closed down. The book starts with a brief description of how and why the region went through substantial political and economic change ‘with remarkably little conflict’ (p. 14) in the post-Cold War era. The common point of departure for the chapters is a new turning point: borders are no longer fuzzy, but instead are more securitized and divisive. Issues such as military capacity, internal security, territoriality, identity and constitution have entered the European discourse and made the European Union’s (EU’s) approach on borders more state-like. Regionalization, too, has therefore lost much popular appeal and political zeal. On closer analysis, the book convincingly illustrates that a number of simultaneous processes are at work. The dual enlargements have meant for the Baltic States and Poland that their major security concerns are salved, and that for them the post-Cold War transition process has come to an end. At the same time the EU–Russia relationship has attained an increasingly uniform and centrally directed form and is becoming the major, if not the only, factor that impacts on the nature of the region. Additionally, regional security threats are being replaced by more global agenda. All this means less space for initiatives from local and regional actors. The final touch to this rather grim vision of the fate of regionalization is given by Frank Möller, who notes that the historical identity markers in the regionbuilding process have been too weak and that a collective memory — a prerequisite for subjectivity — is lacking. Therefore the construction of a sense of common identity in the North has actually failed. Instead of declaring the ‘end of history’ in the European North, however, the book presents a more positive view: Europe is seen as having arrived