The great change in European relations with Russia took place in 1478 when Muscovy replaced the trading Republic of Novgorod as a neighbor of Sweden, Livonia and Lithuania. Western Europe was since that year bordering to a bellicose great power with large resources causing dread. The feelings of dread caused by Russia with Czars like Ivan the Terrible became a standing theme in printed matter as well as politics and the image of Russia became very much similar to the image of Turkey, which threatened Europe from South-East. Various, usually rather negative, stereotype expressions characterized the vocabulary of the 16th century. The Peace of Stolbova in 1617 started a period of successive change. The era of Sweden as a Great Power led to growing knowledge about Russia in almost every respect, but it was still based on the already accepted stereotypes. They started, however, typically to seem more diluted and thin with time. The image of Russia as a threat was to a growing extent replaced by an image of a possibility. The perhaps most remarkable but rather unoriginal printed Swedish description of Russia of the era was Regni Muschovotici Sciographia, published by Petrus Petrejus. At the final stage of Sweden's era as a great power there was a substantial widening but also polarization of the information on Russia. The Russian reform process during Tsar Peter I also began to influence the minds after the turn of the century in 1700. One of the principal describers of this process was Lars Johan Malm (Ehrenmalm), whose large manuscript about the power of the Russian Empire of that time, Några Anmärkningar Angående det Ryska Rijkets Nuvarande Macht from 1714, never reached the printers due to intervention from censors.
The focus of this research is on Finland's role in Soviet Union's calculation of its foreign policy between 1920 and 1930. This was the first decade of both Finnish independence and of Soviet power in Russia. This book answers questions about the objectives of Soviet foreign policy in Finland, on the contacts used by the Soviet legation to obtain information, and on how well the Soviets understood Finland's objectives. People interested in Finland and in Russian perspectives with regards to foreign policy and neighbouring countries will find much new in this book because it relies on formerly unpublished Russian archival material to form the basis for charting Soviet objectives in Finland. The book shows that the Soviets primarily observed Finland in a larger regional context along with other states on its borders in the Baltic Sea region. The global objectives of the revolution and the Soviet Union, but also the domestic political situation in both countries, are reflected on this framework. The period was characterized by forced collectivization in the Soviet Union and, in Finland, by the rise of the right-wing Lapua Movement that emerged at the onset of the Great Depression, laying the foundations for the most severe crisis in the relations during 1929–1930 when the issues surrounding these events destabilized simultaneously the society and political decision-making in both countries
This paper is an analysis of the foreign Aid Policies of two OECD Development Assistance Committee member countries – Finland and Ireland. The analysis reveals that both Finland and Ireland share high principles on their relations with the developing world, although their current policy outlooks appear to differ significantly. Despite Finland's good economic performance and prosperity largely generated by the global demand and market access, the government has so far failed to include the increasing of ODA on its priority agenda. In addition to the declining commitment, the selection criteria for Finnish aid recipients appears to be partially commercially motivated. Ireland on the other hand has a solid record of targeting the poorest of the poor with its development assistance and has recently increased development country focus in national policies. The challenge for Ireland is the effective utilisation of these funds and even more importantly keeping the government's public, international commitment to the 0,7 percent recommendation level despite the possible future slowdown of the economy.
Kunnat ovat suuren muutoksen keskellä. Kuntarakenneuudistus sekä sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon palvelurakenneuudistus tulevat muuttamaan kuntien hallintoa merkittävästi. Kari Hakarin tutkimus tarkastelee yhden suuren kaupungin hallinnonuudistusta uuden julkisen hallinnan teorian näkökulmasta. Uusi julkinen hallinta on kunnallishallinnon uudistamisen kolmas vaihe, joka on kehittynyt perinteisestä julkishallinnosta ja tätä seuranneesta uudesta julkisjohtamisesta. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on arvioida, onko uudesta julkisesta hallinnasta kuntien hallinnonuudistusten uudeksi suunnaksi. Tutkimuksella tuetaan myös kuntien käytännön kehittämistoimintaa. Tutkimuskohteena on Tampereen kaupungin toteuttama kokonaisvaltainen toimintamallin uudistus. Uudistus muodostuu kolmesta osasta: pormestarijärjestelmästä, tilaaja–tuottaja-mallista sekä asiakaslähtöisestä prosessiajattelusta. Tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että Tampereen muutosprosessi toteuttaa varsin hyvin uuden julkisen hallinnan mukaista ajattelua. Se ei kuitenkaan edusta tätä moderneimmillaan, vaan perustuu vahvasti sekä byrokraattisen organisaation rakenteisiin että uuden julkisjohtamisen mukaiseen markkinoistumisen tavoitteeseen. Näyttää siltä, että Tampereenkin toimintamalli kaipaa päivittämistä, jotta se pystyy vastaamaan paremmin tulevaisuuden haasteisiin. Moderni uuden julkisen hallinnan kokonaisuus kuntien hallinnon kehittämisen näkökulmasta muodostuu 1) avoimesta kumppanuudesta asukkaiden, palvelutuottajien ja muiden sidosryhmien kanssa, 2) paikallisuuden ja yhteisöllisyyden korostamisesta, 3) monimuotoisesta suorasta ja edustuksellisesta demokratiasta, 4) asiakaslähtöisestä palvelujen kehittämisestä, 5) tulosperusteisesta palveluiden hankinnasta sekä 6) monimuotoisesta palvelutuotannosta. Muutos vallankäytössä on yksi uuden julkisen hallinnan ominaispiirre. Kunnan johtaminen edellyttää monimutkaistuvassa yhteiskunnassa uusia välineitä ja toimintatapoja. Tutkimuksen mukaan moderni kunnan johtaminen perustuu onnistuneelle yhdistelmälle pehmeää ja kovaa valtaa. Tutkimuksen mukaan uusi julkinen hallinta voi kehittyä kuntien hallinnonuudistusten perustaksi. Tätä tukee se, että uudessa julkisessa hallinnassa kehittämisperiaatteet muodostavat loogisen kokonaisuuden, jota voidaan käytännössä toteuttaa monin välinein erilaisissa tilanteissa. Lisäksi on olemassa ilmeinen tarve yhteiselle visiolle, jotta välttämättä edessä oleva kuntien hallinnonuudistus pystytään toteuttamaan. Uudet, isot reformit tarvitsevat aina mallin, johon muutos voidaan perustaa. Uuden julkisen hallinnan kehittymistä tukee myös se, että hallinnon kehittämisen käytännön toteutukset sekä kansainvälisesti että Suomessa toteuttavat jo monella tavoin uuden julkisen hallinnan mukaisia hallinnonuudistuksen kehityssuuntia. Tutkimus tuo uutta tietoa uuden julkisen hallinnan käytännön toteutuksesta suuressa suomalaisessa kaupungissa. Se näyttää myös suuntaa kuntien kehittämistyölle yhdistäen käytäntöä ja teoriaa ja tuo näin tietoa sekä käytännön kuntien kehittämistehtävissä toimiville että tutkijoille. Tampereen toimintamallin päivittämiselle se tarjoaa päämäärän, jota kohti edetä. ; The subject of this dissertation is the new public governance from the perspective of the local government management reforms. The research question is: how is the new public governance reflected in local government reforms? The research ques-tion will be examined from the perspectives of theory, practice and power relations. The empirical object of the study is the management reform of the City of Tampere, Finland. The reform includes three parts: the mayoral system, the purchaser-provider model and the customer-oriented process organization. The study also aims at the development of municipal operations, and presents new public governance as a comprehensive "theory of practice", which combines theory and practice and allows municipalities to find perspectives, tools and a theoretical framework for their management reforms. The study consists of four separate published sub-studies and this summary. The first sub-study deals with the theory of new public governance within the framework of the management reform of the City of Tampere. The second and third sub-studies are concerned with a variety of practical implementations of new public governance in the City of Tampere management reform. The fourth sub-project addresses power relations. In this summary the results are presented from the perspective of a management model, networked service development and the change in the exercise of power. Questionnaires were the empirical basis of the first two sub-studies, the third examined written documents and used interviews with experts and fourth sub-study relied on theme interviews with directors. New public governance (NPG) represents the third wave of the management re-forms evolving from a traditional public administration, and that following the new public management. An essential feature of the new public governance is that it does not completely reject earlier administrative reforms, but rather complements them with new solutions. NPG is based on the view that the public administration is no longer able alone to control society, but the success of governance is based on the partnership with the private and third sectors as well as with the citizens. Within the framework of new public governance one can, at least to some extent, identify three distinct trends. The differences between the trends are mainly in emphasis placed on various matters. Discussion of the new public governance started in network governance. Next, the new public governance was discussed from the perspective of democratic decision-making and public participation. The third emphasis seems to be on the new public governance as a development of customer-focused services and co-production. The results show that the process of change of the City of Tampere can be imple-mented quite well within the new public governance paradigm. At the beginning of the process the new public management was a decided basis of the reform. In the phases of preparation and implementation constraints and international experiences of weaknesses were perceived in the new public management model. On the basis of this, the management model has been developed further so that issues of new public governance such as local democracy, participation, networks and transparency of government have become stronger. The management model of Tampere does not, however, represent the new public governance in its modern form. The Tampere model is built on a basis of democracy and regulation of traditional public administration as well as the quasi-markets of the new public management. The modern new public governance reform seems to be moving especially towards a customer-oriented service development. According to this study the change in the use of power seems to be one of the characteristics of society's growing complexity and new public governance. There is a need for new instruments for leadership and in the exercise of power in an in-creasingly complex society. The modern municipal leadership is based on a suc-cessful combination of soft and hard power. The growth of new public governance as the next paradigm of management re-forms can be justified from three different perspectives. First, the new public gov-ernance is a logical entity. It brings together coherent principles of management reform, which can be implemented in practice by a variety of techniques in different situations. Second, there is an obvious need for a common vision for local gov-ernment reforms. New, large-scale reforms always need a new paradigm in which a change can be set up. There is a need for a common vision for the municipalities and their functions in order to implement local government reform. The new public governance could be the entirety that can show the way for the necessary man-agement reform of municipalities in Finland. Third, the practical implementations of management reforms both internationally and in Finland are already realizing the trends of management reform of new public governance in a number of ways.
