Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• HERD, GRAEME P.
• LÖFGREN, JOAN

Titel

'Societal Security', the Baltic States and EU Integration

Ist Teil von

• Cooperation and conflict, 2001-09, Vol.36 (3), p.273-296

Ort / Verlag

SAGE Publications Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2001

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The concept of 'societal security' has been formulated to account for the phenomenon of societal identity as a source of instability. This article discusses the concept as articulated by Buzan et al. and applies it to the post-Soviet experience of the Baltic States. It examines the process of Sovietization and the way in which migration and horizontal and vertical competition created tensions and stresses between societies in the Baltic States which then carried over into and shaped the first decade of restored independence. The reasons for and nature of the state-building policies in the three states, particularly the formulation of citizenship policies and the emergence of classic societal security dilemmas, are analysed. Within an empirically based section, the authors then explore the way in which the prospect of European Union membership has impacted on the societal security sectors in Estonia and Latvia. It argues that the normative power of the EU has prompted Estonia and Latvia to resolve their societal security dilemmas in a manner acceptable to the EU, but that the 'magnetic attraction' of EU membership increasingly has the power to repel within an emerging post-sovereign security order.