Springer Borders in the Baltic Sea Region: Suturing the Ruptures

This book focuses on the recent political trajectories within the Baltic Sea Region from one of the success stories of regionalism in Europe to a potential area of military confrontation between Russia and NATO.  The authors closely examine the following issues: new security challenges for the region stemming from Russia’s staunch anti-EU and anti-NATO polices, institutions and practices of multi-level governance in the region, and different cultural strategies that regional actors employ. The common threads of this innovative volume are issues of changing borders and boundaries in the region, and logics of inclusion and exclusion that shape its political contours. From diverse disciplinary and methodological positions the authors explain policies of specific Baltic Sea states, as well as structural matters that make them a region.     Review “In times of increasing tensions between the EU and Russia, this volume is a must-read for those who want to keep developments in perspective. Its chapters take the Baltic Sea Region as a focal point of EU-Russia relations, and in their multidisciplinary offer fresh perspectives on a region that used to bear the promise of transcending the divides between East and West.” (Thomas Diez, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany) From the Back Cover This book focuses on the recent political trajectories within the Baltic Sea Region from one of the success stories of regionalism in Europe to a potential area of military confrontation between Russia and NATO.  The authors closely examine the following issues: new security challenges for the region stemming from Russia’s staunch anti-EU and anti-NATO polices, institutions and practices of multi-level governance in the region, and different cultural strategies that regional actors employ. The common threads of this innovative volume are issues of changing borders and boundaries in the region, and logics of inclusion and exclusion that shape its political contours. From diverse disciplinary and methodological positions the authors explain policies of specific Baltic Sea states, as well as structural matters that make them a region. About the Author Dr. Andrey Makarychev is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Tartu, Estonia. His areas of expertise are political discourses, norms and identities as seen from different domestic and international perspectives. His record of previous institutional affiliations includes George Mason University (Fairfax, VA), Centre for Conflict Studies (ETH, Zurich), Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS), and Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University. Dr. Alexandra Yatsyk is Visiting Researcher at the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Sweden. She is also Director of the Centre for Cultural Studies of Post-Socialism and Associate Professor of the Journalism Department at Kazan Federal University, Russia. She has served and held research at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (GWU, USA), Centre for EU-Russia relations (University of Tartu, Estonia), School of Language, Translation and Literature Studies (University of Tampere, Finland), and Centre for Urban History for East Central Europe (Lviv, Ukraine).