ABSTRACT
Since the creation of the European Union in 1957 discussion regarding the future trajectory and model of governance aspired for by the Union has been lively. At stake has been the issue of what the Union is about, and what its ‘final’ geopolitical identity should be. The Northern Dimension Initiative was proposed by Finland in September 1997 as a broad policy framework for cooperative projects of an environmental, economic, social, cultural and political nature, aimed at stabilising Northern Europe by integrating the Baltic States and Russia into the Western democratic community. Drawing on the principles of liberal democratic peace theory it has been presented as an alternative way to tackle the security problems of the Baltic Sea Region. Given the prevalence of modern discourse promoting the development of the EU into an international actor and the Northern Dimension’s gradual co-option into this, it can appear that the initiative has become part of a process reconstructing Europe in Westphalian form.
