Marko Lehti, David J Smith

During the past decade northern Europe has started to assume an identity of its own. Categories of East and West have become blurred, challenging as well the idea of what it means to be Nordic.

Post-Cold War Identity Politics maps this process in Scandinavia. Looking at projects designed to help regional development in the Nordic countires, it assesses whether a new way of defining 'Northern-ness' is emerging. The book highlights the existence of co-existing and - to some extent - competing region-building projects in northern Europe. It demonstrates how they are all efforts by existing nations to redefine their role in Europe at a time of change, and points to how they might develop in the future.

Possessing a Baltic Europe - retold national narratives in the European North, Marko Lehti; Nordic near abroad or new Northern Europe? perspectives on post-Cold War regional co-operation in the Baltic Sea area, David J. Smith; past politics in North-Eastern Europe - the role of history in post-Cole War identity politics, Jorg Hackman; from modern to post-modern region-building - emancipating the Finnish nation from the state, Christopher S. Browning; the encounter between the Nordic and the Northern - torn apart but meeting again?; looking for neighbours - origins and developments of Latvian rhetoric on Nordic closeness, Valters Scerbinskis; regional security - all or nothing at all?, John Hiden; Estonia and Europe - a common identity or an identity crisis?, Vahur Made; paradise regained - the conceptualization of Europe in the Lithuanian debate, Inga Pavlovaite; the Baltic States in Russian foreign policy discourse - can Russia become a Baltic country?, Viatcheslav Morozov; post-Soviet geo-politics in the North of Europe, Pami Aalto; clash of the boundaries? the European Union and Russia in the Northern dimension, Hiski Haukkala.