With a focus on governmental institutions, this book explores the ways in which EU membership has altered the balance of power among key political actors. The authors discuss cultural adaptation to integration, as well as examining the views of the elite and voters. The transformation in national identity, sovereignty and neutrality are also examined.

Small States and EU Governance shows that the EU's rotating Council presidency and small states' capacity to make use of it have been underestimated. It examines the political objectives the presidency serves and presents a systematic and comparative assessment of its nature and influence in internal market and foreign policy issues.

This book examines the democratic legitimacy of the European Union (EU) and evaluates the democratic credentials of the EU’s main decision-making procedure. It finds that though there is potential for democratic decision-making in the EU, the actual process is dominated by technocrats and secret meetings. The book assesses and discusses the conditions for democratic input in decision-making with five empirical chapters each addressing the ordinary legislative procedure from different dimensions: democratic deliberative forums, inclusion, openness, power neutralising mechanisms and decision-making capacity. The analytical framework provides for an in-depth assessment of the ordinary legislative procedure’s potential democratic qualities and examines whether it fulfils democratic criteria, how the procedure works in practice and whether it has the necessary democratic clout. The author provides both a theoretical discussion and an empirical assessment of what role the principle of democracy could play in the EU. Filling a gap in EU legislative studies and contributing to the debate on the European democratic deficit, Democratic Decision-making in the EU will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, legislative studies and deliberative democracy.

Available online: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:norden:org:diva-6209 In 2021 Finland holds the presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers, coinciding with the body’s 50th anniversary. The Nordic region is to be the most sustainable and integrated region in the world by 2030. To this end, the Finnish presidency intends to move on ambitiously with the work begun by previous presidencies, and to implement the action plan agreed for 2021–2024. Nordic co-operation reinforces our national efforts to achieve carbon neutrality. The Covid-19 pandemic further emphasises the need for co-operation. Besides freedom of movement, security of supply and preparedness for future crises are particularly topical areas of co-operation. The challenges are global and no-one can tackle them by themselves. The Nordics are stronger #together.

Presenting the developmental trends in privatization and internationalization of armed force, this volume analyzes the impact of these trends on the Nordic countries' defence and security sectors.