ABSTRACT
Finnish environmental policy brings together a mix of traditional realist foreign policy dominated by an analysis of Russian and wider European political situation and oligarchic decision-making, an interplay between wellestablished bureaucratic state and citizens trying to make their concerns better heard, and an increased awareness of environmental issues, having started from epistemic communities but now increasingly shaping the core political discourses and even the cultural construction of being Finnish. The Finnish environmental policy is heavily influenced by both the geographic location and the historical experiences of the people. The Finns have learned the hard way that as a small nation they have to pay close attention to the political aspirations of others rather than perceive foreign policy as a very separate political realm. Consequently, Finnish foreign policy may occasionally appear to contain contradictory elements combining Czarist (presidential) self-righteous decision-making with Nordic transparency and plebeian equalitarian values or narrow concerns of immediate national interests with world-embracing attempts to shape the international/regional system into a better one. Furthermore, the history of living with a foreign policy that has included a fair amount of double talk and contradictions has left many Finns quite skeptical of most ideologies and changing foreign policy goals. In short, Finnish foreign policy fits nicely into several boxes in terms of its theoretical orientations, but just as many Finns find it difficult to place themselves clearly in cultural and political reference groups in Europe or the world, they also find it difficult to categorize the Finnish foreign policy in terms of the broader universal trends and processes (see Chapter 2 by Barkdull and Harris in this chapter and, for a more universal picture, Kütting 2000: 11-22). Although historical experiences greatly influence the Finnish attitudes
toward foreign policy, the issue area of environmental foreign policy is most interesting, since it offers opportunities to break free from the constraints of history and make use of new regional and international systems, and in the process reorient and rethink the whole Finnish foreign policy and its priorities. The Finns tend to have a very close emotional, cultural, historical and economic relationship with their environment, and, in particular, with
forests, whereas foreign policy has traditionally been concerned with very different priorities, mostly related to the Russian/Soviet threat scenarios. The older realist orientation may occasionally be supported by new attention to environmental security and new environmental threat scenarios that do not fall much short of national (or global) survival. In other words, both foreign policy and environment are serious matters for the Finns. However, the approach of neoliberal institutionalism and its reliance on international law also has an appeal to the Finns who are keen to seek allies and cooperation and who through centuries of rule by Sweden were brought to appreciate the strict rule by law and legalism.
