Finnish Foreign Policy Research Articles

Finnish Foreign Policy Objectives Since 2021

Finnish Foreign Policy Objectives Since 2021

Finland’s role in the promotion of Responsibility to Protect at the United Nations

ABSTRACT Ongoing atrocities in numerous parts of the world make the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm a highly topical issue. The United Nations (UN) has emphasized the need to move from words to actual implementation of the norm. Despite the unanimous acceptance of the norm in 2005, its application remains contested. The Nordic states have been strong norm entrepreneurs at the UN, but how they implement R2P norm is less studied. This article asks how Finland has operationalized the R2P norm in the Security Council, General Assembly, and the Human Rights Council. This article draws on the literature about small states and about Nordic norm advocacy, on Finnish foreign policy documentation, and on interviews with diplomats and public officials involved with the R2P promotion. According to its findings, there is a gap between ambitious Finnish rhetoric and norm implementation. Instead of an entrepreneur role, it considers Finland a norm supporter.

THE APPROACH OF FINLAND TO RUSSIAN OCCUPATION OF UKRAINE: SECURITISATION OF THE PUTIN REGIME / Rusya’nın Ukrayna’yı İşgaline Finlandiya’nın Yaklaşımı: Putin Rejiminin Güvenlikleştirilmesi

The purpose of this article is to explain the approach of Finland to Russian occupation of Ukraine. Finnish foreign policy implemented between February 24 when Ukraine-Russia War began, and June 30, is analysed by using securitisation theory developed by the Copenhagen School. This study argues that Finland securitised the Putin regime. As a consequence of securitisation analysis, the article reached four results. First, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and President Sauli Niinistö see Russia under the Putin government as a military threat. Second, Prime Minister Sanna Marin and President Sauli Niinistö want to make Finland a member of NATO to strengthen defence capabilities of the country against Russia. Third, Finland securitised the Putin regime. Fourth, as a member of the European Union, Finland has applied collective EU sanctions on Russia, President Vladimir Putin and his close partners. By applying for NATO membership, Finland abandoned the policy of military neutrality that it has been implementing since the 20th century.

Finland’s responses to Brexit: seeking shelter while hedging against changing risks

ABSTRACT Finland has been concerned about the political and security policy implications of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, not to mention the negative economic impact. The departure of the EU’s third-largest member state with its significant diplomatic and military assets has been described as a loss for EU foreign and security policy and as a rupture of European political cohesion. Drawing on the theoretical literature on small states and Europeanisation, this article investigates how Finland has responded to these challenges and the related risks. It is suggested that the post-Brexit political consolidation of the EU was a priority for Finnish government(s) as the increasingly turbulent global and regional environment yet again highlights the security-policy benefits of Finland’s EU membership. The analysis also points towards the further Europeanisation of Finnish foreign and security policy as a Brexit-related hedging strategy. Finland also sought to hedge against some of the perceived risks embedded in the changing political dynamics of the EU and, relatedly, the loss of a powerful northern political ally in major EU economic matters.

From Finlandisation and post-Finlandisation to the end of Finlandisation? Finland’s road to a NATO application

ABSTRACT Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 triggered a process that saw Finland abandon its traditional policy of military non-alignment and, together with Sweden, submit an application for NATO membership. Finland’s history of Finlandisation came up routinely in the parliamentary debates on a NATO application and there was a broad consensus that NATO membership would mark the end of Finlandised Finland. Accordingly, this article has a dual aim. First, it seeks to chart the main lines of post-war Finnish foreign and security policy since the late 1960s using Finlandisation and post-Finlandisation as the organising concepts. Second, it explores why, ultimately, Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is suggested, engendered a psychosis of fear among the Finnish public, stirring collective memories of the loss of land, lives and livelihood at the hands of unprovoked Soviet aggression in the 1939–40 Winter War and the fear of history repeating itself at various tension points in Finno-Soviet relations thereafter. Strikingly, until 24 February a clear majority of politicians and the Finnish public opposed NATO membership.

Finlandization, Neutrality, or Kekkoslovakia? Paasikivi–Kekkonen’s Line in Finnish Discourses 30 Years after the End of the Cold War

Although the Cold War ended thirty years ago, the Paasikivi–Kekkonen’s line, which characterized Finland’s foreign and domestic politics in the Cold War era, remains an essential element of various competing discourses in the country. This article is based on a study of the “Paasikivi–Kekkonen’s line” concept as a fl oating signifi er frequently used in competing Finnish discourses, including those on the Finnish–Russian relations, on the Finnish foreign policy strategy, and on Finnish domestic politics. The discourse on the relations with Russia involves the proponents of continuing with the Paasikivi–Kekkonen’s line aiming at transforming Russia’s geographical proximity into an opportunity for Finland, and those who oppose this line on the grounds that in the Cold War era it resulted in a shameful “Finlandization” of the country. The Finnish discourse on the country’s foreign policy strategy involves those who argue in favor of continuing with the Paasikivi–Kekkonen’s line, of which the core was neutrality in the Cold War era and is non-alignment today, and those in favor of giving up with non-alignment to choose the NATO option. The article discovers that Sweden plays a critical role in this discourse than Russia. Finally, the Finnish discourse on the country’s domestic politics involves those in favor of continuing with the Paasikivi–Kekkonen’s line, of which the core is consensual politics, and those who support the transition to more transparent, albeit inevitably partisan politics.

Finland’s Africa Strategy

The article analyzes Finland’s strategy towards Africa. The relevance of this topic does not raise doubts in the light of the growing interest not only of Finland, but also of the European Union as a whole in Africa, especially the countries of the Sahel. Finland’s strategy was adopted almost simultaneously with the EU’s strategy and can be considered as an integral part of it. The article analyzes the publicly available documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, which are relevant both to the policy of this northern country in relation to the continent as a whole and to individual African countries. The aim of the strategy is to set realistic but ambitious goals for Finland’s policy towards Africa, based on the common interests of Finland and African countries, to define the main directions of Finland’s policy towards Africa and to define concrete actions to achieve them. In addition, it is necessary to pay special attention to strengthening political and economic relations and expand cooperation in various forms. Thus, the research carried out can be useful for a better understanding of one of the most important directions of Finnish foreign policy today.

Development cooperation and national planning: analysing Finnish complicity in postcolonial Tanzania’s decentralization reform and regional development

ABSTRACT Architecture and planning projects dominated Finnish-Tanzanian development cooperation in the 1970s. While few previous connections between Finland and sub-Saharan Africa existed, the adoption of international aid operations in Finnish foreign policy provided a pathway for architects and planners to partake in the nation-building endeavours of socialist Tanzania. Through archival analysis, this paper provides a comprehensive perspective into how a Finnish development cooperation agency and development employees (architects included) worked for the benefit of the implementation of Tanzanian socialist policy and aimed to advance regional development as well as to serve the purposes of ujamaa and the authoritarian one-party governance system. The Uhuru Corridor Regional Physical Plan (1975–1978) that followed became the first attempt at large-scale regional planning in Tanzania and attempted to establish regional planning as a solid part of state management. The paper suggests that within the framework of national planning, the difference between a development cooperation project and a planning project is obscure, and it demonstrates that basing research on the conceptual likenesses between planning and development can provide fruitful approaches to planning history.

Взгляды М. Койвисто на внешнюю политику Финляндии в отношении СССР в 1980-х – начале 1990-х годов

Взгляды М. Койвисто на внешнюю политику Финляндии в отношении СССР в 1980-х – начале 1990-х годов

A Forgotten Spirit of Commercial Television? Co-Productions Between Finnish Commercial Television Company Mainos-Tv and Socialist Television

Finnish commercial television company Mainos-TV co-produced a string of documentary and entertainment programmes with television broadcasters in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary and Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. This article asks what motivated Mainos-TV, a commercial television broadcaster in a non-socialist country, to collaborate with socialist television? Based on an analysis of published and archival sources (e.g. industry documents, memoirs, television programmes and press coverage), the article argues that Mainos-TV engaged with socialist television to secure its position at a time when the operation of commercial television was still quite restricted. Finnish foreign policy placed great importance on maintaining good relations with the neighbouring USSR. In this context, the leadership of Mainos-TV viewed its collaboration with socialist broadcasters as a way to strengthen the company’s position. International entertainment programmes and co-produced documentaries on social and cultural topics offered Mainos-TV ‘quality’ programming that differed from the stereotypical image of commercial television. Collaboration with Eastern European partners was not purely strategic, however, as it also brought influences from socialist television culture to Mainos-TV’s offerings. Mainos-TV’s co-productions with its socialist partners highlight the largely forgotten complexity of the history of European commercial television.

The varying degrees and meanings of Nordicness in Finnish foreign policy

ABSTRACTGeography and political history make Finland a borderline Nordic country: one that has not always self-evidently been part of the Nordic countries, but also a country for which being identified as Nordic has been all the more important. Finland has successfully used “Nordicness” as an instrument to recognition and influence internationally. Historically, the Nordic neighbours have been a reference group of outstanding value for the country, and a platform from which to approach particularly the UN. But in what sense would its foreign policy be “Nordic”? While some of the “exceptional” features of Nordicness, such as internationalism or solidarity, may well apply to Finland, the country has also stood out because of security political considerations. Perhaps more than the other Nordics, it would place security first and not place values before interests. At the same time, the importance of Nordic cooperation has considerably increased in security and defence policy, with strong support among the political parties and the public. This article aims at shedding light on the meanings of “Nordicness” in Finland and on its use as an instrument in foreign policy. It also discusses bilateral relations with Sweden as a special manifestation of “Nordicness”.

From ‘Thin’ to ‘Thick’ Foreign Policy Europeanization: Common Foreign and Security Policy and Finland

The value of Europeanization for empirical research on foreign policy has been a much questioned topic recently. This article argues that Europeanization helps us to ask researchable questions regarding foreign policy. To support this argument, it will introduce an analytical framework that identifies two directions (adaptation and projection) and two dimensions: ‘thin’ Europeanization which refers to changes in policies and organizational structures, and ‘thick’ Europeanization implying learning, socialization, and identity change. The article proposes a way to better integrate the sociological institutionalist aspects of the Europeanization process into the adaptation- projection dynamism. To demonstrate the framework, the article looks at Finnish foreign and security policy and argues that the Europeanization of Finland has been more profound than previous studies indicate. The European Union (EU)’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has played a significant role in a number of transformations in Finnish policies since 1995, resulting in ‘thick’ Europeanization. In addition to national adaptation, Finland has, with varying outcome, tried to project ideas, preferences and models from the national to the European level.

Neutrality as Identity? Finland's Quest for Security in the Cold War

This article examines Finland's Cold War neutrality, highlighting its political and ideational dimensions. In contrast to other scholars who have stressed the pragmatic realpolitik considerations behind Finnish policymaking, the article demonstrates that political and ideological considerations were at least as important in shaping Finnish Cold War neutrality. The ideological and political identity dimensions are connected to the strong national consensus that lay behind Finnish neutrality policy and its wide, sustained public support. Paying attention to these dimensions helps us also to understand continuities in Finnish foreign and security policy that have continued into the post–Cold War period. The continuities of Cold War–era neutrality formulations are illustrated by a discussion of Finnish foreign policymaking in the final phase of the Cold War and the early 1990s.

Decolonizing branded peacebuilding: abjected women talk back to the Finnish Women, Peace and Security agenda

This article interrogates the sexual ideology of Finnish peacebuilding, the country's foreign policy brand and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda by examining the experiences of women ‘written out of history’. Using the method of ‘writing back’ I juxtapose the construction of a gender-friendly global peacebuilder identity with experiences in Finland after the Lapland War (1944–45) and in post-conflict Aceh, Indonesia (1976–2005). Although being divided temporarily and geographically, these two contexts form an intimate part of the abjected and invisible part of the Finnish WPS agenda, revealing a number of colonial and violent overtones of postwar reconstruction: economic and political postwar dystopia of Skolt Sami and neglect of Acehnese women's experiences in branding the peace settlement and its implementation as a success. Jointly they critique and challenge both the gender/women-friendly peacebuilder identity construction of Finland and locate the sexual ideology of WPS to that of political economy and post-conflict political, legal and economic reforms. The article illustrates how the Finnish foreign policy brand has constructed the country as a global problem-solver and peacemaker, drawing on the heteronormative myth of already achieved gender equality on the one hand and, on the other, tamed asexual female subjectivity: the ‘good woman’ as peacebuilder or victim of violence. By drawing attention to violent effects of the global WPS agenda demanding decolonialization, I suggest that the real success of the WPS agenda should be evaluated by those who have been ‘written out’.

Lost at Sea: Finnish government, shipping companies and the United Nations embargo against China during the 1950s

Finnish Cold War foreign policy was based on the desire to stay out of all international disputes. Yet, during the 1950s, two Finnish tankers, Wiima and Aruba, received an enormous amount of foreign attention when they tried to sail to Communist China. The United Nations had urged all countries, including non-members such as Finland, to stop selling strategic goods to China, which had intervened in the Korean War. The embargo created a highly profitable opening in the shipping market for anyone willing to transport such goods, and Finnish companies tried to fill it. This article suggests that they were in fact undermining the embargo more extensively than has been generally known. When the Finns were criticized for their actions, they interpreted this as a sign of the ruthlessness of great powers. At first, the Finnish government failed to recognize that these companies drove the country into the middle of international conflict and then took little decisive action to steer the country out of it. The allegedly pragmatic Finnish foreign policy was in this case actually based on unreliable information and incorrect assumptions.

Still a Physician rather than a Judge? The Post‐Cold War Foreign and Security Policy of Finland

AbstractThis article seeks to explain some of the key changes in Finnish foreign and security policy since the end of the Cold War. Finland's peace policy during the Cold War built on a self‐image of a neutral bridge‐builder between East and West, that is a ‘peacekeeping superpower’ and a ‘physician not judge’ in world politics. Since that Finland's neutrality has been replaced with a peculiar combination of military non‐alignment and commitment to the European Union's common security and defence policy. A change has taken place from traditional peacekeeping to military crisis management led by the EU and NATO. Lately, Finland has started to build a profile in the field of peace mediation. This article argues that these changes have been enabled by a recalibrated understanding of small stateness, as Finnish identity has been adjusted from small‐state neutrality towards ‘member‐state alignment’ and ‘small‐EU‐member‐stateness’. Consequently, the Finnish physician approach has been reconstructed for the post‐Cold War world.

The Åland Example as Norm Entrepreneurship

The Åland Example has generated considerable international attention as a successful solution to a complicated ethno-territorial dispute. This article looks at how it has been used as a basis for norm entrepreneurship by political actors in both Åland and Finland. For Åland itself, the Åland Example provides normative capital that is used to influence domestic politics. As such, the article shows how norm entrepreneurship may provide a useful political device for a minority or an autonomous region as it strives to preserve or develop its status and identity vis-à-vis the majority and host country. Herein the case of the Åland Example also shows how norms are a strategic asset that can be used for different political purposes and how this may create conflicting agendas between domestic interests with a stake in the international advocacy of the norm. For Finland, the Åland Example provides a potential asset when constructing its foreign policy profile. Yet, it has been used relatively sparingly as such a brand-enhancing device in Finnish foreign policy. The article finds two main reasons for this. First, being a minority solution, it does not generate the sort of emotional attachment that would get Finnish policy-makers to invest in its full potential. As such, it is being somewhat ignored. Second, from the perspective of state diplomacy, the Åland Example has its drawbacks. Under some circumstances, visibly marketing it can do more harm than good for Finnish diplomacy, which is why Finnish foreign policy-makers choose to tread carefully with promoting the Åland Example. The article thus provides a glimpse of the partly overlapping, partly conflicting agendas between majority and minority actors in their international advocacy of norms.

A Nordic Country with East European Problems: British views on post-war Finland, 1944–19481

Documents published in the latest volume of the series Documents on British Policy Overseas (DBPO) reveal interesting shifts in British views on Finland's odds of survival in the changing post-war geopolitical situation. In 1944–1945, the British government put the maintenance of the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union first and identified its interests in Finland, considered to lie in the Soviet security sphere, very narrowly. However, after this initial period of marked pessimism over Finland's fate, the Foreign Office identified factors and trends which indicated that the Finns could carve a distinct position for themselves in the no-man's land between the emerging Cold War blocs. By 1948, careful, yet guarded, optimism of Finland as a Nordic country capable of retaining its sovereignty and Western connections superseded an earlier view of Finland as an East European country, bound to fall under complete Soviet domination sooner or later. As Finland's position improved, so Britain's interests gradually widened. Were Finland now to fall under Soviet domination, the United Kingdom and the West had more to lose. In the absence of means to match Soviet influence in Finnish foreign policy and domestic affairs, British policy was defined in terms of applying ‘soft power’ to preserve Western interests: cultural and economic relations, propaganda and information campaigns, and the cultivation of personal contacts with leading Finns. Subsequently, pessimism and optimism oscillated in British analyses of the situation in Finland and assessments of how well this soft power worked, or what means of influence were available. At the same time, a determined effort was made to contain the expansion of Soviet influence in Northern Europe to Finland.

Agile small state agency: heuristic plays and flexible national identity markers in Finnish foreign policy

Studies of small state foreign policy tend to draw relatively bleak conclusions when it comes to small state agency. However, I will examine alternative and more positive modalities of small state agency. One such modality is agility, the strategic maneuverability to take advantage of a chancy environment. Besides leading to dangerous rigidities and biases, particular types of foreign policy imageries and heuristics may also facilitate experimental and agile agency. In studying this possibility, Finland is chosen as an illustrative case because historically Finland has faced a particularly constraining geopolitical context and because it has managed to adapt to multiple upheavals and to different geopolitical contexts. The emphasis is on the heuristic dynamics inherent in Finnish foreign policy culture that have allowed it to actively meet the emerging challenges. Instead of taking a detailed historical approach, I seek to understand the role of the relatively flexible and combinable embodied cultural models, i.e. thick images. They allow for agency-related experimentation that may bring added value that allows Finland to exceed the constraints of the brute geopolitical position. After reviewing multiple embodied foreign policy images, I will use them to analyse New Year's speeches by the Finnish Presidents Ahtisaari and Halonen in order to see how the fickle present is made to resonate innovatively with the known, commonplace, and mythical.

‘A mustard seed grew into a bushy tree’: The Finnish CSCE initiative of 5 May 1969

On 5 May 1969 Finland launched its famous initiative, which led to the opening of multilateral negotiations for the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) three years later. To date there is widespread reasoning that the Finnish initiative was mainly an idea inspired by the Soviets. Based on new archival materials and interviews with contemporary witnesses, this article shows, however, that the Finns had their own good reasons to launch their appeal. The initiative was primarily designed to ease Soviet pressure on Finnish neutrality and to deal with the pending question of recognition of the two German states. The conference itself was for a long time not the main ambition of Finnish foreign policy. Offering Helsinki as a host to the talks and thereby making neutrality an indispensable condition for convening the security conference became the crown jewel in Finland's strategy towards the Soviet Union in the years 1969 to 1972.