This open access book explores the organization and evolution of Finland’s Cold War cultural diplomacy (1945-1975) as the basis for a reflection on the country’s foreign relations, the link between culture and politics, small states’ autonomy during the Cold War, and the porosity of the East-West divide. The book offers a historical survey of the development of Finland’s cultural dip…
This is an open access book. With the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, European security has been put on high alert. The implications of the Russian military invasion are many and difficult to grasp in full. However, the need for greater European strategic autonomy appears increasingly evident. The book argues that strategic autonomy may be reached—also in the short run—if differenti…
This open access book explains why southern European countries with significant Muslim communities have experienced few religiously inspired violent attacks – or have avoided the kind of securitised response to such attacks seen in many other Western states. The authors provide a unique contribution to the literature on violent extremism – which has traditionally focused on countries such a…
This open access book discusses the emergence and development, and in some cases also the disappearance, of social movements and activism in Sweden during the 1980s. Its aim is to nuance and problematize the image of the 1980s as unilaterally dominated by right-wing politics and neoliberalism, as well as the idea of a conflict-free Scandinavian model. The 1980s have often been described as a pe…
This interdisciplinary book takes stock of Ukraine’s thorny European integration path in the last two decades. Engaging many Ukrainian academics and practitioners, the book seeks to offer a first-hand insight into how Ukraine moves towards EU membership, while in war with Russia, and which ‘stumbling blocks’ it encounters.
This open access book focuses on the importance that EU politicization has gained in European democracies and the consequences for voting behaviour in six countries of the EU: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Most of the studies which research the way the EU is being legitimised focus on the European Parliament elections. In this book we argue that to understand how EU acc…
This open access book provides the first ever authoritative collection of scholarly insights, based upon original research, into the political groups of the EP tackling the fundamental changes since the Lisbon Treaty and the upsurge of radical right parties. It analyses political groups and their importance from multiple perspectives critically assessing their role and significance in EU polit…
This open access book provides an exhaustive picture of the role that annulment conflicts play in the EU multilevel system. Based on a rich dataset of annulment actions since the 1960s and a number of in-depth case studies, it explores the political dimension of annulment litigation, which has become an increasingly relevant judicial tool in the struggle over policy content and decision-making …