INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF COOPERATING CITIES: Finnish-Russian Cooperation in the Frames of the Environmental City Twinning Programme

• Main Author: PARHIALA, LEEA
• Other Authors: Johtamiskorkeakoulu - School of Management, University of Tampere
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Kansainvälinen politiikka/ISSS - International Relations/ISSS; North-West Russia
• Online Access: https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/82586

In this study I focus on characterizing international system of a sub-region of the Baltic Sea area in the frames of environmental cooperation. I chose a case study that represents close collaboration and progressiveness. Environmental cooperation between Finland and Russia is rather intensive and it has developed well during the last few decades. Neighbourhood and good relations among the partners have promoted it as well. The Environmental City Twinning programme consists of sub-projects carried out by Finnish cities and St.Petersburg. Twinning between cities has been beneficial for the cooperation, indeed. Twinning means close collaboration, constant interaction, day-by-day working together and informal contacts. This increases openness in the cooperation and promotes equal partnership. I wanted to choose a possibly unique case for my study. Most likely, there is something in the city twinning programme that is worth of sharing with other actors of Finnish-Russian environmental cooperation and of cooperation on other fields as well. What are the lessons learned of city twinning cooperation, will be clarified in the results of the analysis. Theoretical approach of the English school gives me tools for characterizing the international arena of cooperating cities in Finland and North-West Russia. Those tools are the concepts of: international system, international society (pluralistic and solidarist) and world society. International society is a concept that is most often used by the English school researchers. According to Hedley Bull (one of the beginners of the theory), international society emerges when “a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, forms a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions” (Dunne, Kurki and Smith 2007, 134). This thesis is about cooperation; hence, it is already a sign of an international society. In this study, the ...