Regionality Beyond Security?

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of the relationship between securityspeak and regional cooperation in Northern Europe. In the post-Cold War period, it is argued, regional cooperation has been driven by a mixture of realist-and liberalist-based security discourses. While realism results in cooperation through othering, liberalism rather promotes cooperation through inclusion. On the whole, security has been a unifying theme, not a divisive one. European Union and NATO enlargements, however, are undermining the security bases of regional cooperation. The article asks the question of what will happen to regional cooperation if security is removed from the frame. Will regional cooperation wither away as a political project? Or will attempts at re-securitization be made to rejuvenate regional cooperation? Either way there are apparently difficulties in thinking of regional cooperation without relying on security for motivation and justification. Through a revisionist account of Nordic cooperation that challenges the idea that Norden is a security community par excellence and is rather driven by asecurity concerns, a way out of the security-cooperation dilemma is offered.

Borders in the Baltic Sea Region

“…Another important part of the BSR's regionalization, supported especially by the Western and Nordic partners, was the wish to engage Russia in a regional cooperation framework based on soft security and so-called low political issues (Browning and Joenniemi 2004 ). Behind Russia's inclusion in the BSR was the idea that as the region moved away from hard security issues, it also moved from traditional territorial nation-state concerns towards common projects, like nuclear safety, transborder crime, democracy and human rights, trade barriers and environmental protection (Council of the Baltic Sea States 2016a ).…”