Rolf Petri (ed.): The Baltic Sea: A Space of Changing Expectations, Comparativ 2016/5, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2017, ISBN 978-88-921-0640-6, pp. 130.
After
1989, great expectations were placed on the re-establishment of the Baltic Sea area
as a ‘historical region’. The idea was to offer to the citizens of the coastal
countries new opportunities to identify themselves with trans-national
political processes and the unhindered exchange across borders. The
contributions gathered in the present volume acknowledge the results achieved
by the EU enlargement, but are rather sobering with regard to the envisaged establishment
of a ‘Baltic Sea Region’. The authors examine the structural policies for the islands,
the attempts to establish forms of transnational democracy, the intellectual
efforts of region-building, and the perception that migrants have of such
efforts. The essays show that national interests and expectations, as well as
older spatial concepts such as ‘Eastern Europe’, have hitherto resisted the
establishment of a ‘Baltic Sea Region’.
Authors: Marta
Grzechnik, Jussi Kurunmäki, Deborah Paci, Rolf Petri, Vasileios Petrogiannis.
