ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the construction of the traditional notion as well as the underlying assumptions related to its usage and aims to combine it with the ideas based on so-called new security thoughts that are the critical school and post-modem orientation. It argues that the notion of environmental interdependence involves a spatial tension between the geopolitical vision of a world composed of fragmented sovereign territorialities and the ecological view of the Earth as a hierarchy of nested ecosystems. The book provides a semiotic view of the nature, properties and functions of boundaries. It demonstrates subtle politics involved in the demarcation of spaces of inclusion without overt spatial exclusion, which is pursued in relation to the notion of environmental interdependence in the context of Baltic Sea environmental cooperation.
