33
equality, environmental policies, consumer policy, local administration and policy in
dealing with the autonomic regions. The list of ‘Nordic’ merits is long, but the extent to
which these are merely taken for granted conceptions, traditional myths and political
slogans is hardly ever problematized.66
Also political actors within Northern Europe often ply with similar arguments, trying to
profit from the sometimes gainful effect of either being reckoned as an ideal model of
reference, or in other cases, as the “boring backwater” of Europe that takes pride in its
“lethargic and uncontroversial political system” without ever lapsing into the infamous
maelstrom of power politics.”67 Notions of “tiny and tidy Scandinavia”68 or of the five
Nordic states being “small, peace-loving, democratic countries” 69 allude to this specific
Nordic attitude.70 Some actors involved in the Baltic Sea region-building process also
tried to avail themselves of colourful and idealised notion of what this region is
basically about. The following example that claims to describe a “northern perspective
on European history and culture” illustrates the lofty character of notions and images
used in the context of these argumentative strategies.
Anthropologists and cultural historians consider all that Human do as culture. According to
a brief definition, culture reflects the creativity of the human mind. [...] This limited every
day concept of culture can support our common observations. In the Lappish heart,
Rovaniemi does not compete with Florence or Rome. We would not catch up Central
Europe’s lead, even if we brought Luciano Pavarotti and la Scala’s opera house to the
Lappish mountains. Laplanders set a framework for high culture in the wonderful
mountains, but it is representative of cultural understanding from the southern perspective.
According to the wider concept, Lapland’s nature floods into the culture, but one should
learn to understand it as a rapids shooter reads the rapids. The Northern dimension opens
unmeasurable wealth to the European audience and a complete new way to realize cultural
capital status. [...] Snow and ice are used as elements of fine arts. Northern culture is a part
of nature, in which the seasons are stages of fantasy and drama.71
C. What Makes a Region a ‘Region’? Reflections on Baltic Sea ‘Regionness’
Generally, many analysts have tried to define the concept of ‘region’ in various
contexts. In fact, there are many different territorial entities commonly – and sometimes
mistakenly – classified under the same label – ‘region’.
66 JUKARAINEN Pirjo: Norden is Dead. Long Live the Eastwards Faced Euro-North. Geopolitical Remaking of Norden in a Nordic Journal. In: Cooperation and Conflict, No. 12/1999, pp. 355-382, here
p. 367.
67 CAVE Andrew: Finding a Role in an Enlarged EU. In: Central Europe Review, Nr. 20. 22 May
2000. Online publication www.ce-review.org [26 November 2007].
68 See KATZENSTEIN Peter J.: Regionalism in Comparative Perspective. ARENA Working Papers,
No. 1/1996. Oslo 1996, p. 10.
69 ØSTERGÅRD Uffe: The Nordic Countries in the Baltic Region. In: JOENNIEMI Pertti (ed.): Neo-
Nationalism or Regionality: The Restructuring of Political Space around the Baltic Rim. Stockholm
1997, pp. 26-53, here p. 28.
70 For more details about Nordicness and the politico-strategic instrumentalisation of Nordic
uniqueness, see also chapter “Old North vs. New Regionalism – Visions Competing for the Same
Space?”, p. 76-.
71 Rovaniemi 2011. The Eight Seasons. Gávcci jagiáiggi. Promotional folder available online, official
website of the city of Rovaniemi http://www.rovaniemi2011.fi [23 October 2007].
34
The range of so-called regions in Europe actually encompasses a variety of remarkably
different phenomena. We call the BSR just as we do Bremen, Brussels and the Baranya.72
There is no transdisciplinary or global definition but generally a region can be
conceived as a category that regroups disparate aggregates. However, as such it may
still denominate very different concepts, e.g. intermediary formations between the local
and the national level, sub-state entities within a country or nation, a cooperation zone
that includes the respective state, a trans-border area, or indeed, an entire subcontinent.73 What makes a region a region? This plain question leads us first to the
aspect of territoriality and thus, to geography. When trying to define what it is exactly
that makes us classify something as a region, the first and foremost condition seems to
be locality. As Schmitt-Egner put it: “Location matters.”74 However, Nekrasas pointed
out that political geography should not try to lock regions up in a “steel cage” since
geographical affiliations are subject to constant re-interpretation.75 In fact, defining the
BSR along sharp geographical borders by including all states and sub-state entities that
directly border on the Baltic Sea seems problematic.
Estonia
Germany
Hamburg
Schleswig-Holstein
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
West Pomerania
Pomerania
Warmia-Masuria
Sweden
Skåne
Blekinge
Östergötland
Södermanland
Gotland
Stockholm
Uppsala
Gävleborg
Västernorrland
Västerbotten
Norrbotten
Finland
Lapland Northern-
Ostrobothnia
Central Ostrobothnia
Ostrobothnia
Satakunta
Finland Proper
Uusimaa
Eastern Uusimaa
Kymenlaakso
Russia
North-Western
Federal District
Kaliningrad
Table 3: BSR States and Respective Sub-States
However, Schäfer is right in saying that these ambits only serve the purpose of
delineating administrative entities whose coverage does not necessarily correspond with
the catchment area of the cooperative networks that Baltic Sea Regionalism has put
forth.76 Therefore, any sort of geographical definition has to remain vague in the sense
that the BSR as a spatial concept does not have clear-cut borders.
72 SCHMITT-EGNER: The Concept of ‘Region’. Theoretical and methodological Notes on its
Reconstruction. In: Journal of European Integration, No. 3/2002, pp. 179-200, here p. 179.
73 See SMOUTS Marie-Claude: The region as a new imagined community. In: LEQUESNE
Christian/LE GALÈS Patrick: Regions in Europe. London/New York 1998, pp. 30-38, here p. 31.
74 SCHMITT-EGNER: The Concept of ‘Region’. Theoretical and methodological Notes on its
Reconstruction. In: Journal of European Integration, No. 3/2002, pp. 179-200, here p. 180.
75 See NEKRASAS Evaldas: Is Lithuania a Northern or Central European Country? In: Lithuanian
Foreign Policy Review, 1/1998, pp. 19-45, here p. 22.
76 See SCHÄFER Imke: Region-Building and Identity Formation in the Baltic Sea Region. In: The
Interdisciplinary Journal of International Studies, No. 1/2005, pp. 45-69, here p. 46.
35
The notion of ‘Baltic Sea Region’ cannot be simply equated with the geographic
‘region’ concept. In this study, the ‘region’ is perceived not to be solely determined by
its factual characteristic features such as natural or geomorphic similarities. Geographic
factors such as a common littoral form a region just as much as bare physical closeness
does. The concept of a ‘region’ underlying this study is based on the assumption, that
regions emerging from regionalist tendencies or proactive region-building efforts are
based on additional ideational factors, with geographic circumstances forming some sort
of conceptual auxiliary. To put it differently, geographical proximity is a fact, whereas
‘regionness’ is the outcome of a political process, the process of regionalism.
Defining ‘regions’ in the sense of spatial units is linked with the question of perceiving
and conceptualizing borders. From a modernist point of view, a ‘region’ in the sense of
a territorial entity is a clearly and neatly defined space with clear-cut borders and a
designated centre that projects its power evenly across the whole terrain. From this point
of view, borders do have the plain function of demarcating the inside from the outside
without having any sort of constitutive subjectivity on their own. In contrast thereto, the
concept of “fuzzy borders”77 defines the margins as some sort of intermediary spaces of
interaction and exchange whose cross-links reach right beyond the borders. According
to this perspective, the mere fact that they do not only form the border but rather
transcend and overlap borders and dividing lines already provides them with a
substantive power of their own.78 Instead of defining concepts of regions and borders,
Hettne introduced a set of criteria that determine a region’s ‘regionness’ assuming that
the fact of a region being a region is not exclusive or absolute but that there are various
degrees of ‘regionness’ that “make a region more or less of a region”:
– geographical unit: a ‘region’ should form some sort of geographical unit, i.e. it
should have more or less discernible boundaries defined by natural physical
borders. A good example for this type of ‘proto-region’ is Sub-Saharan Africa;
– social system: the region is inhabited by human beings that at least maintain some
kind of trans-local relationship (also hostile or negative); combined with a low level
of organisation this level constitutes so-called “primitive regions”;
– organised cooperation: the region implies organisational membership and respective
structures (“formal region”);
– civil society: organizational framework promotes social communication and
convergence of values across the region; shared cultural tradition is a basic
precondition for this sort of “regional anarchic society”;
– acting subject: this stage is achieved with the coalescence of a distinct identity,
actor capability, legitimacy and structure of decision-making; this regionalism is
very similar to the process of state formation and nation-building. The ultimate
outcome could be a “region state”, which Hettne defines as a “supranational
security community, where sovereignty is pooled for the best of all.”79
77 See CHRISTIANSEN Thomas/PETITO Fabio/TONRA Ben (eds): Fuzzy Politics around Fuzzy
Borders. The European Union’s ‘Near Abroad’. In: Cooperation and Conflict, No. 4/December 2000,
pp. 389-415.
78 See BROWNING Christopher S.: Introduction. In: Id. (ed.): Remaking Europe in the Margins.
Northern Europe after the Enlargements. Aldershot 2005, pp. 1-10, here p. 5-6.
79 See HETTNE Björn: Globalization, the New Regionalism and East Asia. Paper presented at the
Global Seminar ‘96 Shonan Session’, 2-6 September 2006, Hayama/Japan, pp. 3-4.
36
Even though Hettne claims that this scale of regionness is not intended as a stage theory,
it nevertheless suggests some sort of evolutionary logic, according to which state-like
regionness seems to constitute the most advanced stage a ‘region’ can reach. According
to this line of argument, ‘regionness’ is closely linked with ‘actorness’. In other words,
the region is perceived as an independent variable, and the whole process of increasing
regionness is a question of developing actor-like qualities such as decision-making and
state-like self-identification. The BSR would probably range somewhere between
Hettne’s concept of a ‘formal region’ and a ‘regional anarchic society’ and thus, be
fairly close to the ultimate stage of state-like regionness. However, the idea of a linearly
progressing regionness seems neither applicable nor desirable for the Baltic Sea case at
its current stage. This study’s dealing with the BSR is based on the concept that equates
‘region’ to some kind of virtual ‘action space’ rather than conceiving it, in line with
Hettne’s ‘region-state’ image, as an aspiring ‘action unit’.80
D. Regionalism – Definitions, Delimitations and Typologies
After the end of the Cold War, the study of regionalism has received new interest in
both Political Science and Economics. Analysts have tried to identify different types of
regionalism and to discover the inherent dynamics of regionalist developments, and
have thus accumulated a rich store of expertise. The following subchapters are intended
to give a brief overview of the terminological and conceptual basics, and eventually, to
outline various approaches developed in order to describe and analyse this global
phenomenon.
I. The Regionalism Complex and the Importance of Conceptual Clarity
Regionalism is a multidimensional and pluralistic phenomenon in international politics,
and it is a complex and (maybe even more) contested subject area in IR studies. This is
partly due to its multidisciplinary provenance: the academic concern with regional
spatiality and regionness has not emerged from within conventional Political Science.
Indeed, the respective research agenda has been shaped by various different disciplines,
such as Geography, Sociology, Urban Studies, Anthropology, and Spatial Planning.81
Consequently, theorists have developed many different ways of defining ‘regionalism’,
each in view of their specific study and research purpose. As Herrschel and Gore put it,
there is no global definition of ‘region’ or ‘regionalism’ as “regionalism means a lot of
things to many people.”82 The popularity that regionalism gained in recent years has not
only enhanced academic productivity; the variety of approaches has also produced a
certain lack of conceptual clarity. An enormous variety of phenomena and
developments is placed under the heading of ‘regionalism’: processes of social or
economic regionalisation, growth of regional awareness or identity, formation of interstate regional institutions, state-promoted economic integration, or emergence of
80 See SCHMITT-EGNER: The Concept of ‘Region’. Theoretical and Methodological Notes on its
Reconstruction. In: Journal of European Integration, No. 3/2002, pp. 179-200, here p. 181.
81 RUMFORD Chris: Rethinking European Spaces. Territory, Borders, Governance. In: Comparative
European Politics, Issue 2/3 (July/September 2006), pp. 127–140, here p. 129.
82 HERRSCHEL Tassilo/GORE Benjamin: Creating the Multi-Purpose and Multi-Scalar ‘Virtual
Region’. New Regionalisation in the Baltic Sea Area. Paper presented at the 6th EURS Conference,
Roskilde 21-23 September 2006, p. 1.
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References
Zusammenfassung
Seit 1989 ist es im Ostseeraum zu einer explosionsartigen Entstehung einer Vielzahl von regionalen Initiativen und Zusammenschlüssen gekommen. Der Ostseeraum weist bis heute eine europaweit einzigartig hohe Konzentration an kooperativen regionalen Strukturen auf. Diese bilden gemeinsam ein enges Netzwerk von Vereinigungen, die unter dem Überbegriff der "Ostseezusammenarbeit’ interagieren.
Diese Studie analysiert die Hintergründe dieses regionalen Phänomens oder so genannten „Ostsee-Rätsels“ auf Basis eines Vergleichs zwischen den Regionalpolitiken zweier staatlicher Schlüsselakteure, Schweden und Finnland, wobei der europäische Integrationsprozess als übergeordneter Bezugsrahmen für die Untersuchung dient.