The Baltic Sea: A Space of Changing Expectations

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.