| title: | Identity and Foreign Policy Conduct: Baltic-Russian Relations in the European Integration Framework |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF6728 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
5.7. Political Sciences |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | TU Faculty of Social Sciences |
| head of project: | Eiki Berg |
| duration: | 01.01.2006 - 31.12.2008 |
| description: | The proposed research project examines the link between a states' international identity and foreign policy, focusing on Baltic-Russian relations in the context of the deepening and widening of European integration. The objective of the project is to explain whether and under what conditions, identity and normative ideas could be determinant of foreign policy behavior and what are the causal mechanisms through which the construction of national and supranational identities influences international relations. The results of the projects are both applied, contributing to the implementation of more effective foreign policy, as well as of theoretical and methodological importance, contributing to the development of the research programme examining the link between identity and foreign policy. The theoretical basis of the projects rests on: - theories of Europeanization according to which European-level governance has brough about a major transformation in EU member-states, third countries, as well as interstate relations; - the constructivist paradigm in international relations according to which national interests are not determined only by material factors but also by normative ideas that shape national identity and determine the foreign policy objectives and behavior of actors. The research project is based on a constructivist premise that national identity is inescapably relational (determined through a relationship to "significant others") and has a narrative, discursive structure. Contradictions in dominant identity narratives of states are a potential source of tension in interstate relations, because they challenge the acceptance of a desired national role by other actors and the international community. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Eiki Berg | Tartu Ülikool | ||
| 2. | Piret Ehin | |||