Premium
Small State Influence Within the EU: The Case of Finland's ‘Northern Dimension Initiative’
Author(s) -
Arter David
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5965.00260
Subject(s) - political science , member states , politics , state (computer science) , dimension (graph theory) , work (physics) , member state , public administration , ordination , cold war , european union , political economy , economy , international trade , sociology , law , business , economics , engineering , mechanical engineering , mathematics , algorithm , machine learning , computer science , pure mathematics
This article deals with regionalization in Northern Europe, focusing in particular on the Northern Dimension Initiative (NDI) which, launched in 1997, was Finland's first political initiative as an EU member. The NDI was ostensibly designed to enhance the influence of Northern Europe as a political actor by co‐ordinating the work of the various cross‐national initiatives that emerged there in the 1990s. The NDI was far from a routine initiative. It urged the need to improve co‐operation between the EU and such outside organizations as the Barents EuroArctic Regional Council and the Council of Baltic Sea States on the one hand, and to increase co‐ordination between different programmes and pillars within the EU on the other. The central question posed in this article is: ‘What does the NDI indicate about the ability of small states to influence EU policy? Have small states become more influential in the post‐Cold War era? Is ‘small’ synonymous with ‘smart’ in Joenniemi's terms?