Based on a major international research project undertaken by The Institute for East West Studies, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of an important, but little explored, feature of post-Cold War Europe: the emergence of subregional cooperation in areas such as the Barents, the Baltic Sea, Central Europe and the Black Sea. It analyses the role of subregional cooperation in the new Europe, provides detailed case studies of the new subregional groups and examines their relations with NATO and the European Union.

Generates new concepts of economic, military and environmental security for the Baltic and discusses a future agenda for the region with ideas for policies which are needed but which, in many cases, do not exist.

The ring of countries bordering the Black Sea make up one of the unstable subregions of former Soviet republics, satellites and neighbours. This volume analyses the security issues in the Black Sea region and the development of mechanisms that would promote cooperation and conflict management.

Its unique, two-pillared institutional structure ensures that state as well as local authorities are drawn into deliberations, as are representatives from the European Commission and the regional Saami organisation.

HauptbeschreibungGo North was the programmatic title of an international conference on Baltic Sea Region Studies that took place at Humboldt University of Berlin from April 4-6, 2005. It was hosted by the BalticStudyNet project, which is part of the European Union's Erasmus Mundus programme for the global promotion of European higher education. In order to discuss the past, present and future of Baltic Sea Region Studies, the Berlin conference brought together about fifty government representatives and scholars from all Baltic Sea Region countries, including Russia, as well as from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the USA, Canada, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. The basic idea of the Go North conference was to encourage a fundamental change of perspective - away from intra-regional and towards extra-regional and truly global approaches to the Baltic Sea Region: How is the Baltic Sea region perceived when viewed, let's say, from Australia? What, if anything, would a Chinese student find typical, extraordinary, or even unique when looking at the region? Why should a scholar from Mexico, South Africa or India wish to do research in and/or about the Baltic Sea Region? Consequently, third country views on Europe's North and the Baltic Sea Region were a feature of many of the presentations and panel discussions during the conference, which are documented in this volume.

The book examines the security puzzles posed by the remaining legacies of dominance and conflict in the Baltic Sea region as governments seek to integrate the three Baltic sates in a more stable system of cooperative security.

This edited volume focuses on various forms of regionalism and neighborhoods in the Baltic-Black Sea area. In the light of current reshaping of borderlands and new geopolitical and military confrontations in Europe’s eastern margins, such as the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, this book analyzes different types and modalities of regional integration and region-making from a comparative perspective. It conceptualizes cooperative and conflictual encounters as a series of networks and patchworks that differently link and relate major actors to each other and thus shape these interconnections as domains of inclusion and exclusion, bordering and debordering, securitization and desecuritization. This peculiar combination of geopolitics, ethnopolitics and biopolitics makes the Baltic-Black Sea trans-national region a source of inspiring policy practices, and, in the light of new security risks, a matter of increased concern all over Europe. The contributors from various disciplines cover topics such as cultural and civilizational spaces of belonging and identity politics, the rise of right-wing populism, region building under the condition of multiple security pressures, and the influence and regional strategies of different external powers, including the EU, Russia, and Turkey, on cross- and trans-regional relations in the area.

The Baltic macroregion is a platform for the development of different areas of international cooperation, which are an important factor affecting the socioeconomic growth of the region’s states. The deteriorating political relations between Russia and its Baltic neighbours complicate the development of mutual connections. However, economic and sociocultural cooperation and joint environmental projects continue despite all the difficulties. Based on recent studies carried out by Russian and Polish researchers, this book examines current trends in the socioeconomic development of the region’s countries and various forms of transboundary cooperation and provides recommendations for further development. Special attention is paid to sustainable environmental management and environmental protection, transboundary ties among companies and among people, the development of international tourism, opportunities for reinforcing the contact function of the border, and spatial planning. The book addresses theoretical problems that are of crucial significance to economic development and transboundary cooperation, namely, those of path dependence, the emerge.