Change in Finnish Foreign Policy

The Tampere team develops a theoretically informed analysis of the transformation and change of Finnish foreign and security policy following the transition into the 1990s and beyond.

The focus will be on the dynamics and processes of change in the empirical case of Finnish foreign policy, which will be approached by developing and testing theoretical propositions derived from political psychology and International Relations theory. Theory-driven foreign policy analysis is in ascendancy, but only with the help of archival material and interviews can researchers fully approach cognitive and other subjective aspects of decision-making processes.

By focusing on what practitioners actually thought, did and discussed, the Finnish case provides a unique opportunity for theoretical triangulation between archival sources, decision-maker interviews and IR theory.