publications

Niklas Helwig (2024), The EU High Representative: Foreign Policy Leadership in a Changing World. London: Palgrave Macmillan Cham. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics (PSEUP).

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis and comparison of all the EU High Representatives / Vice Presidents of the Commission (HRVPs) until 2024. The book explores how three incumbents with very different backgrounds, ways of working and personalities took up the challenge of formulating the EU’s answers to brewing international crises, regional instabilities, humanitarian disasters and, eventually, war. Applying role theory, the research provides deep insights into foreign policy leadership during a period when the EU needed to adapt to a rapidly changing international environment. Based on a large set of expert interviews, the book makes the case that the leadership and role performance of the HRVP matter and can have a positive impact on the EU’s international activities. As geopolitics stages a revival, future HRVPs need to engage powerful member states and key actors in Brussels to unleash the full potential of the EU’s economic, political and military weight.

Tommi Koivula & Heljä Ossa (2024), Suomi mainittu: Kansallisen turvallisuutemme murroskausi 2014–2024 läntisin silmin. Helsinki: Teos.

Kysymys kansainvälisestä asemastamme on aina kiinnostanut suomalaisia. Haluamme tietää, mitä meistä ajatellaan. Millaisia uhkia ja riskejä länsikumppanimme näkevät Suomeen kohdistuvan? Millaisena turvallisuuden osaajana Suomi nähdään? Onko Suomi tärkeä vai toisarvoinen? Kirjassaan Suomi mainittu Tommi Koivula ja Heljä Ossa käsittelevät yleistajuisesti näitä teemoja nykyisessä historiallisessa tilanteessa. Kirja auttaa ymmärtämään paremmin turvallisuuspolitiikkamme dramaattista muutosta viime vuosien aikana ja Suomen Nato-jäsenyyden vaikutuksia.

Anton Staffans (2024), Britannia tähyää jälleen ”Suezista itään”. Maanpuolustus-lehti

Britannia tähyää yhä aktiivisemmin itään, mutta sen turvallisuuspoliittista toimintaa sävyttää tasapainoilu erilaisten intressien ja roolien välillä. Maa on osoittanut kykenevänsä tarvittaessa projisoimaan sotilaallista voimaa kauaskin, mikä tekee siitä potentiaalisen kumppanin mahdollisessa alueellisessa selkkauksessa. On kiinnostavaa seurata, jääkö Britannian suuntautuminen alueelle vain konservatiivihallituksen projektiksi vai edustaako se pysyvämpää muutosta brittien strategisessa ajattelussa.

Tyyne Karjalainen & Katariina Mustasilta (2023), European Peace Facility: from a conflict prevention tool to a defender of security and geopolitical interests. TEPSA Briefs 05/2023.

The use of the European Peace Facility (EPF) to support Ukraine has changed its broader framing within the EU. The joint financing and risk sharing has encouraged national decision makers to open stocks of defence material and enabled a level of European ownership for the Ukraine-aid. Breaking of taboos catalyses questions regarding the EU’s security partnerships beyond Ukraine.

Niklas Helwig (2023), Culture shock: The EU’s foreign and security policy and the challenges of the European Zeitenwende. Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft  

The EU is in a state of culture shock. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the European Zeitenwende placed the EU in a largely unfamiliar international environment for which its past modes of operation and behavioural patterns are unsuited. The EU was able to geopolitically repurpose its existing processes and instruments to cope rather effectively with the challenges of the war and its global fallout. However, the EU is also faced with more fundamental questions related to how it will navigate a much more competitive international environment. For effective and sustainable answers, it will need to develop a joint strategic culture. 

Katariina Mustasilta (2023), The EU’s external conflict responses: Drivers and emerging trends in the era of strategic competition. FIIA Working Paper 135.

The EU’s conflict and crisis responses face an ever more challenging environment, characterized by two interconnected aspects: increasingly complex conflict and security situations, as well as intensifying rivalry among major powers in a shifting international order. The Working Paper discusses the key external and internal drivers that influence the EU’s conflict and crisis responses in the era of strategic competition and identifies three emerging trends that follow on from this: there is an increasing emphasis on geopolitical rationales in decision-making regarding where and what actions to take; responses take the form of security-oriented and narrowly defined operations that are largely non-executive and supportive in nature; and there is a growing demand for ad hoc frameworks and flexibility in conflict responses.