Browsing by master's degree program "Euroopan ja Pohjoismaiden tutkimuksen maisteriohjelma (European and Nordic Studies)"

As the rise of popularity of the Nordic model in academia and through the newspapers reached different kinds of audiences and reached a peak during the mid 2010s, Nordic cooperation passed through an idyllic moment for its expansion and gained strength. The policymaker adopted a discursive element called “Nordic Added Value” to capitalise on the popularisation of the Nordic Model and started to use it for the enhancement of some achievements in different sectors touched by Nordic cooperation. The aim of this thesis is to inquire on the use of Nordic Added Value in the working context of the Nordic Culture Point, institution part of the cooperation framework, that deals with the promotion of culture and artistic and innovative collaborations between the actors living on both coasts of the Baltic Sea. More precisely, the thesis inquires on the rationale and context of birth of Nordic Added Value and its application in the context of Nordic-Baltic cultural cooperation. Finally, the dissertation aims to detect the presence of narratives describing the concept and its endorsement by Nordic cooperation. The thesis makes use of Grounded Theory, and a theoretical framework utilising Soft Power theory and the concept of Added Value coming from Business Studies and European Studies. The method and theoretical framework then apply to the analysis of a dataset of approved applications from the Nordic Culture Point. The results narrate of a concept used as an evaluative tool of the quality and effects of cooperative endeavours for Nordics and Baltics alike. Positive externalities which have affected both the discursive construction of the Nordic and Baltic cultural management models relate to the employment of cultural tools affecting the cohesion as regional block. Positive effects of the uses of Nordic Added Value for Nordic-Baltic relations can translate to the implementation of successful strategies for the creation of work, innovation and revenues for their respective cultural and creative industries. Policymaking gains and learning added value arguably benefit the Baltic block the most.

This study is meant to tell the story of the Scandinavian Communist Federation and its threat to Moscow’s status within the Communist International. An organization of Nordic Communist Parties within the Communist International. The circumstances of its creation in 1924 coincide with the shift of politics within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the death of Lenin. The Scandinavian Communist Federation was not organized centrally by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) but by the member parties themselves. Forcing the ECCI to change its statutes and creating together with the Balkan Communist Federation a precedent. The initial assessment by the ECCI is that these two federations serve two different purposes. While it was clear that the Balkan Communist Federation longed to create a Yugoslavian/Pan-Baltic superstate, such is not clear for the Scandinavian Communist Federation. The only intent which is clear is the wish to organize as a “Scandinavian Battlegroup” and coordinate one struggle together. The Scandinavian Communist Federation was met with skepticism by the national Communist Parties and was therefore not fully fledged supported by its members. Only the Norwegians seemed seriously committed. Also, on the side of the ECCI, there have been some considerations about an ever-increasing fragmentation of the Communist International, due to contradiction with national ambition by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its tighter grip on the ECCI. This paper examines the ideological Realpolitik of the Soviet state and its effect on the Scandinavian Communist Federation, but also the ideological feasibility of a Scandinavian nation-state.

This thesis examines how the concept of Nordic added value is defined and understood in Nordic social and health policy cooperation. Although the concept serves as an evaluation criterion for funding and a guiding principle in all official Nordic cooperation projects and activities, there is no single, widely accepted view of the meaning of the concept. The goal of the research is thus to investigate and understand the underlying principle of Nordic cooperation, through which the research also supports the practical work of Nordic actors and institutions operating in the social and health sector. In addition, the research supports the implementation of the Nordic Council of Ministers' Vision 2030 action plan, according to which the Nordic region will become the world's most sustainable and integrated region by 2030. The research is mainly inductive in nature, and its conceptual framework includes an examination of Nordic cooperation narratives, the Nordic epistemic community, and the added value of transnational cooperation. It is a case study that investigates and compares the understanding of the concept of persons working in or with Nordic social and health policy cooperation at two separate levels of formal Nordic cooperation. In addition to survey and interview materials, the research analyses official Nordic cooperation documents using qualitative content analysis. The survey and interview materials were gathered from both the official level, which includes Nordic Welfare Centre operating under the Nordic Council of Ministers, as well as the practical level, which consists of several networks that Nordic Welfare Centre coordinates. The results of this study show that there are no significant differences between the understandings of the two levels, but the concept appears to be relatively flexible and ambiguous and dependent on the individuals using it. However, the concept can be understood in both symbolic and practical terms, whereby the former is closely related to the common background and values associated with the Nordic welfare state models, and the latter to the exchange and sharing of knowledge and experiences. The research shows that the greatest added value in Nordic social and health policy cooperation arises from useful comparisons that lead to learning, inspiration, and ultimately development both in individual countries and in the entire Nordic region. Although the research results suggest that a lot of added value is produced in the Nordic welfare sector, the study also highlights that many factors, such as lack of resources and administrative and language challenges, limit the realisation of the full potential of Nordic added value.

The European Commission and the Finnish government have released their respective roadmaps in sustainable forest policy. With the European Commission pushing for further cooperation and integration in a field with no dedicated framework, it becomes vital to have a consensus on the concept of “sustainable forestry” with Member States such as Finland. Finland, on the other hand, as the most forested Member State in terms of percentage of total land area, manifests opposite views regarding how the administration is supposed to effect policy. This thesis consists of an analysis of respective documents from the European Commission and the Finnish government: the New EU Forest Strategy for 2030 and the Government Report on Forest Policy 2050. Similar in scope and structure, they clearly reflect these different attitudes towards policymaking and the role of policymakers themselves in the coming decades. The focus of this analysis is, however, their respective use of metaphors. With the theoretical support of the Advocacy Coalition Framework of Hank Jenkins-Smith and Paul Sabatier and the Critical Metaphor Analysis of Jonathan Charteris-Black, these metaphor choices are then observed to explain which stakeholders—either forestry, administrative, or environmental—are favored in each document. In this thesis, metaphors are words whose basic meaning, which is usually the one easiest to imagine, is not the one used in their textual context. From associating that missing, metaphorical meaning to chosen key concepts, this analysis shows that the metaphors found are used in cohesion with each other. This reveals a re-conceptualization of those key terms according to the accompanying metaphors. For example, the European Commission presented forests in its Strategy as “towns”, while the Finnish government saw them as “(ore) mines”. The results of this thesis reveal the consistency of metaphor choices in discourse and their significance in depicting a potentially different set of narratives from those contained in conventional language, both overtly and covertly. With these results in mind, scholars can further pursue research in other fields thanks understanding of metaphor and its prevalence in communication, or even expand this line of research into the role of media, for example.

As digitalization and globalization are global trends that transcend company and nation borders, the competition for the best talent has also become a national competition. Finland, among other Nordic nations has a thriving IT and technology literate society that is facing a negative demographic prognosis. There is a stark need for skilled labor migration. Past research sets Finland apart as the only Nordic nation to have a talent attraction and retention plan on the national level. Yet, the research also shows that Finland’s labor market is difficult to integrate to as a migrant. This thesis study explores what kind of changes the Covid-19 crisis brought to the talent attraction and retention practices in Finland. The research is conducted as a qualitative case study, and it focuses on the attraction and retention of the ICT & Tech talents from outside of the EU/ETA area between 2019 and 2022. The research is conducted through semi-structured interviews with International ICT talents and IT recruiters. In addition, previous literature on nation branding, talent attraction and retention and integration has been reviewed to set a framework and context for this study. The results of this research indicate that the Finnish national brand has a positive image but is not well known. It is associated with the other Nordic nations as one Nordic area or block. The decisive factors for international talents to relocate to Finland are based on soft values as work life balance, family friendly society, low hierarchy, and friendliness. However, the research suggests that the more important aspect of the equation is the retention work from the employer’s side and the public sector’s side. Furthermore, Covid-19 crisis accelerated the digitalization and created more demand for ICT specialists and opportunities for global hires. While simultaneously limiting the integration and network building opportunities through remote and hybrid work and restrictions. Finally, the results of this research indicate that for a sustainable future attraction and retention of international talent, the companies, and the city level, that have the greater burden of retaining the talent, need more support.

In my thesis, I study the evolving role of the European Union in facilitating the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue. Since 2011, the EU has acted as a facilitator in the dialogue that aims to normalize the relations between Kosovo and Serbia. I focus especially on the development of the EU’s negotiating approach in the dialogue. In my thesis, I present three research questions: 1) What kind of a negotiating approach does the EU adopt in mediating the dialogue? 2) How does the EU incentivize Kosovo’s and Serbia’s participation in the dialogue? 3) How actively does the EU engage in the facilitation of dialogue? The theoretical framework of my thesis is twofold. Regarding the EU’s negotiating approach and engagement in the dialogue, I follow the categorization presented in Zartman and Touval’s (1985) mediation theory, where mediators working in conflict resolution are divided into communicators, formulators, and manipulators. Concerning the incentives offered by the EU, I rely on Schimmelfennig ja Sedelmeier’s (2004) classification within Europeanization theory, where Europeanization is presented as following from external incentives or social learning. As my research data, I use the European Commission’s yearly reports on Kosovo and Serbia, as well as the EU’s General Affairs Council conclusions on the Enlargement and Stabilisation and Association Process, which describe the dialogue’s progression and the EU’s positions on the dialogue. I analyze the data through the use of Qualitative Content Analysis by assigning coding categories to the documents, which enable me to examine the EU’s mood in various phases of the dialogue, the development of the input the EU exerts on the dialogue, and the use of incentives the EU offers Kosovo and Serbia. As the result of my thesis, I show that the dialogue can be divided into a progress phase (2011-2016) and a stagnation phase (2017-2022). I find that in the progress phase, the EU acts as a neutral arbiter, but as the dialogue progresses into the stagnation phase, the EU attempts to create progress by increasing its engagement in the dialogue and by strengthening the incentives it uses, introducing sticks in addition to carrots. This transforms the EU’s mediator role in the dialogue from an arbiter to a mediation participant protecting its own interests.

The goal of this thesis is to better understand the role and the impact of the DiscoverEU initiative. It allows 18 year-old EU citizens to travel and explore Europe for up to a month by giving them a free Interrail pass. The Interrail programme however, was not created by the EU but is being used as a tool by the latter to promote European solidarity, their vision of a European identity and to further a sense of belonging. To conduct this study, I used Instagram to gather the participants’ posts and captions. All the data I gathered was public and the participants remained anonymous throughout my thesis. I proceeded with qualitative content analysis to analyse my data in order to observe what kind of narrative was being created online by the participants. European identity, the significance of travel and the decision to target the younger generations were topics of particular interest throughout this thesis. DiscoverEU aims at providing a shared experience these young people can relate to and bond over so that the EU becomes something concrete in their mind, something they can identify with and support later on in their life as well. This thesis finds that the EU is using DiscoverEU as a tool to promote European identity in numerous ways. The participants are sharing mostly positive experiences but only a few European statements about European identity. However, criticism towards the better off was also raised.

This master's thesis compares two quite different areas of Nordic cooperation, the passport union and defence cooperation. The research question seeks to find answers to whether the failures of the passport union have been connected to the advantages in defence policy and if they have not, which factor have promoted the shift of attention form passport union to defence cooperation. I seek to demonstrate how the atmosphere in cooperation has changes and the time of growing cooperation and supranationalism is turning to a traditional realist, intergovernmental cooperation. The first form of cooperation, the passport union, at the time of its founding in the 1950s was distinctively deep form of cooperation, especially considering being a traditionally sensitive political area.. The importance of defence cooperation, on the other hand, has increased especially in the 2010s and thereafter due to the changes in the European security environment. The most important events are the Russian conquest of the Crimean peninsula and later the war in Ukraine, as well as Finland's and Sweden's NATO application in 2022. Both areas, defence, and the passport union, include a lot of other international cooperation, the most important of which is the Schengen area in connection to the passport union and NATO in defence cooperation. By comparing these two areas, we see the many forms of Nordic cooperation and changes in the most important themes over the decades. With the definition of the borders, the quality of the passport union becomes evident. Borders are diverse, can create inequality and equality, unite and separate people, and act as the physical borders of the state, representing states’ power and rights. With the diversity of borders, their opening has been a significant step in Nordic cooperation. Even though the passport union has faced challenges, it is still in operation and plays a significant role as a builder and facilitator of Nordic cooperation. Defence cooperation, on the other hand, has largely developed under international organizations. The most important of these is NATO, whose founding members Denmark, Norway and Iceland were, and to which Finland and Sweden submitted their application to join in 2022. Cooperation under the European Union as well as commitment to UN and NATO exercises and peacekeeping have also developed Nordic cooperation in defence forces. NORDEFCO, founded in 2009, is important achievement as a facilitator of Nordic cooperation outside other institutions. By using the reports and texts of the Foreign Policy Institute and its Nordic counterparts, we get a picture of the effects of crises to these chosen policy areas. These crises are most prominently the 2015 refugee crisis, the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's attack on Ukraine. The historical analysis is based on academic literature as well as political statements, opinion polls and news articles. When comparing these two areas of cooperation, it is clear that global events have affected the level of cooperation, and cooperation often sparks as a reaction to external events. Because of this, defence cooperation has been more significant and received more attention in the recent years. The passport union is still a significant part of cooperation, but it seems that its peak has already passed, and other things are attracting more attention. At the same time, international cooperation around the world is experiencing similar changes. The conclusion is that whereas it is true that the passport union has struggled while the defence has bloomed, the changing focus has been due to global events. However, while the hypothesis was that similar events were failures for one and successes for the other, the most important events shaping cooperation have been different.

Nordic welfare states are globally admired success stories with the happiest people, high level of education, and equal redistribution of resources. Change in the welfare state’s ethos since 1980s and the recent crises in the contemporary world have left their imprints to these northern countries and the strong welfare states have been claimed to be in decline. This thesis is analysing if the welfare state and its ethos have started to fade away or are they still resilient and stabilising actors in the society. The aim of this study is to evaluate the Nordic welfare state from the perspective of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Kela, and evaluate the argument of the declining welfare state by the people, who are working in one of the most visible welfare producing institutions in Finland. The Nordic welfare model is compared with other European welfare regimes, based on Gøsta Esping-Andersen’s classic “Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism”. As any of these models are impeccable, the critique of the Nordic model is also presented in this research. Another main theory used in this research is liquid modernity by Zygmunt Bauman, which argues that modernity today is liquid by its nature and a system that is forgetting issues, such as community and trust towards each other in the society. Replacing security and feelings of commonness with neoliberal and market-oriented welfare policies is causing the declination of the welfare state and alienation of people from each other. These neoliberal ideas have also their effects on Kela. In addition, Kela’s role in the Finnish welfare state will be analysed in this research. Eight qualitative interviews are constituting the empirical data for this research. Theory-guided content analysis is being used to analyse the interviews, which were conducted in spring 2021. Interviews done with Kela’s customer service specialists are being contrasted with the theoretical framework. This research argues that the declination of the welfare state is caused by the fluidity of modern society which is causing unpredictability and insecurity to people’s lives even in the safe havens of the Norden. The results show that the concerns of the contemporary welfare state are real, and according to the professionals interviewed worry for the future. Polarisation, fragmented employment relationships, and social exclusion were seen as threats to the welfare state. On contrary, acting as a nanny-state and saving people with money, and increasing benefits’ levels were not seen as solutions to the eternal problem of the Nordic welfare state. What is a sufficient level of activation on behalf of the society and what is the role and responsibility of an individual? All in all, the Nordic welfare state is seen as an institution, which guarantees security to its residents and acts as a safety net, if needed. Welfare-producing institutions, such as Kela, are a part of this safety net, and replacing them does not seem likely in the future. Instead, combining the unpredictable future and the competitiveness society with the welfare state is seen as a problem, to which the welfare state needs to find answers in the future.