Finland and the Tightening Competition in Global Politics

FIIA conducted a research project entitled ‘Finland and the Tightening Competition in Global Politics’. The project was part of the implementation of the Government Plan for Analysis, Assessment and Research activities and lasted until December 2018. The project analyses critical global and regional trends that may affect Finland’s international position in the near future.

The research project was divided into three thematical but still interlinked sections:
a) global political setting
b) regional political setting (incl. the EU and Russia)
c) Finland and its close neighborhood.

Every sub-section followed closely vital trends in international politics and in global and/or regional governance and their effects on Finland. The aim was to locate meaningful global and regional developments that have an effect on Finland’s foreign and security political environment. The project discussed questions like what are the possibilities for international community to govern future conflicts? What kind of conflicts will challenge the global governance structures? How will the EU manage future developments?

The project’s findings were published in a series of publications and seminars in different formats (FIIA Briefing Papers, FIIA Analyses and FIIA Reports.) The final report of the project was built on these overall results and focused on the Finnish position and the Baltic Sea region in the global and regional setting. The final report was delivered to the Prime Minister’s Office in December 2018.

The project was led by Director Teija Tiilikainen and supervised by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the project was coordinated by Coordinator Maija Salonen. FIIA researchers taking part in the project were Programme Director Juha Jokela, Senior Research Fellow Kristi Raik (now the Director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute in Tallinn), Senior Research Fellow Katja Creutz and Research Fellow Tuomas Iso-Markku. Also other FIIA researchers and external specialists also contributed by producing analysis for the projects.

For more information, please contact Maija Salonen.