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A strategically weighed discussion on the reasoning, history and consequences of the Nordic balance. After the Second World War, large security and defense policy decisions were made that affected Scandinavia when the Soviet Union wanted a higher stake in Finland and Norway and Denmark sought to protect themselves against another occupation by joining NATO. In practice this came to mean that foreign policy in Finland was virtually dictated by the president, Sweden remained neutral but strongly defended, and the strategic importance of Denmark diminished. The balance remained functional as long as Norway kept permanent NATO bases and nuclear missiles outside its borders and Finland prepared a strong defense force against possible NATO and Soviet attacks. L. Pitkaniemi

This article analyses the relationship between EU security, integration and associated members using insights from security studies and the literature on Europeanization. While much of the recent literature emphasizes either the EU's insignificance as a security actor or its importance as a normative and global actor, I investigate its role as a security actor in its own region, arguing that the EU is primarily a regional security actor. I make two general claims: (1) it is the development of common rules and values in various policy areas that constitutes the basis for the EU as a security actor; and (2) it is the successful projection of these rules and values beyond EU borders that will determine the impact of the EU as a security actor. The aim is therefore to show how the EU promotes security and stability through the externalization of rules and values through various processes, association agreements and neighbourhood policies. Adapted from the source document.

Marianne Jelved: Norden og Europa. Jean-François Battail : Nordisk särart och internationellt utbyte - något om kulturmötens villkor. Matti Klinge: Omkring det falska i nordismen. C.G. Bjurström: En översättares syn på språken. Guðrún Pétursdóttir: Nordisk identitet - hva er det og skal det bevares?. Lars-Henrik Schmidt: Den naturlige identitetsfølelse mellem nordisk kultur og europæisk civilisation. Jørn Boisen: Fra universalisme til protektionisme? : fransk sprogpolitik i et historisk perspektiv. Jaakko Lehtonen: "Mera än ord" - nordiska språk och kulturer i den europeiska dialogen. Geirr Wiggen: Det nordiske språkfellesskapet : språksosiologiske vilkår og framtidsutsikter. Ástráður Eysteinsson: Translation and cultural borders. Uffe Andreassen: Nordisk og fransk mentalitet.

Comparative politics is the only one of the political science subdisciplines that is defined in methodological rather than substantive terms. Since, however, scientific enterprises are always and unavoidably comparative, any emphasis on comparison and comparative method is certainly less than helpful in attempts to grasp the meaning of the term "comparatie politics". According to general usage in political science, comparativists are engrossed in political similarities and differences between countries; this lexical definition, however, corresponds poorly with stipulative definitions embedded in the practice of research. For one thing, by performing important hypothesis-generating and similar tasks, studies of one case form a central and integrated feature of comparative politics. Furthermore, much comparative research moves on the levels of individuals and groups, and makes use of countries as contexts rather than units. As political science has matured to be a nomotetic discipline, aiming at the building of empirically falsifiable explanatory theory, the crossing of borders in space and time has become a necessity, and comparative politics is today much more than an isolated political science compartment only. References.