Rikard Bengtsson

• Lund University

This article zooms in on the pre-conditions on the citizens’ level for deeper Nordic cooperation on civil defence matters. Historical ties, Nordic security cooperation, high-trusting citizens and the fact that all five Nordic states now are members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) speak in favour of increased cooperation on civil defenc...

This article investigates the defence policies of the Nordic and Baltic countries from the perspective of shared security culture. To that end, the article analyses conceptualisations of total defence and resilience in a comparative perspective and inquires into existing and prospective regional cooperation in this area, in order to determine to wh...

The Covid 19 pandemic has put the issue of public trust at the centre of political analysis. This article inquires into the level of public trust in Sweden concerning current crisis management as well as preparedness for future crises. The empirical basis for this study consists of unique data generated through two surveys on the Covid 19 virus con...

A decade ago, Nordic cooperation on security and defence matters gained momentum, having been largely absent from the map of Nordic cooperation during the Cold War and its aftermath. This article analyses developments along three dimensions of Nordic cooperation: military defence (focusing on the Nordic Defence Cooperation), civil security (in the...

This article concerns small state security from a cognitive perspective and investigates Estonia as a security actor as perceived by all littoral Baltic Sea states. Drawing on unique elite survey and interview data, the article unpacks similarities and differences among internal (Estonian) and external perceptions of security, threats, and capabili...

The global political economy is in a process of fundamental transformation. In institutional terms, this is most evident in the elevation of the Group of Twenty (G20) into the premier forum for global economic governance. Based on a logic of great power summitry, such a development raises particular challenges for the European Union (EU) and Europe...

Bengtsson, Rikard and Ole Elgström. (2011) Conflicting Role Conceptions? The European Union in Global Politics. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2011.00157.x This article utilizes role theory for analysing the role(s) of the European Union (EU) in global politics. Specifically addressing the interplay of the EU’s own role perceptio...

This book attempts to conceptualise EU action in the field of regional security. Drawing on constructivist theory, the framework of the book focuses on the meeting - or 'interface' - of actors, a situation reflecting the mutual construction of self, other and situation. The analytical framework applied here to European security politics is potentia...

This article seeks to analyse European Union rhetoric concerning its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The article employs an analytical framework built on regional security complex theory and the concepts of interface and recognition and analyses official rhetoric from EU representatives (primarily from the Commission but also the Council) in t...

How did the three Nordic European Union member states approach their periods as holders of the European Union (EU) Council Presidency? Two radically different predictions about the impact of the Presidency on member state behaviour can be found in the literature. Some main-tain that the position functions as an amplifier, strengthening the already...

The Council Presidency offered Sweden a possibility to contribute not only to a number of important issue areas but also to what we may call the ‘foreign policy’ side of the EU.A general question was, of course, what sort of impact Sweden could make in this field, given its background as a nonaligned and small state — a country generally regarded a...

Contributions from a symposium on the Baltic Sea Region and international security, focusing on puzzles in the German-Russian relationship, the regional issues in Russia, the role of the United States, the Russian-Western relationship, the function of threat images, the peace-building promise of transnational cooperation, the prospects for a stable...

In this article, some of the possibilities and obstacles involved in attaining stable peace in the Baltic Sea region are analysed. By stable peace is understood a relationship in which military conflict resolution has become unthinkable regardless of how serious a prospective conflict may become. It is argued that stable peace does not presently ex...

Despite a protracted and well‐established policy of neutrality, in 1910, Sweden decided to enter into negotiations with Germany concerning military collaboration in case of a Russian attack against Germany and Sweden. This article argues that behind the Swedish decision to enter into the talks was Swedish trust towards Germany to the effect that Ge...

The Swedish EU Council Presidency during the first half of 2001 was generally perceived in positive terms by commentators and practitioners alike. While the primary memory, tragically enough, may be the riots in the streets of Göteborg during the European Council meeting (June 15-16), for EU development, it may well be argued that the progress in t...

This analysis is concerned with the nature of the European security order. Such a point of departure is not without its challenges, as it may be argued that conceptuali-zations of Europe, security and order are in constant change, not least in recent years and decades. Nevertheless, political discourse as well as public debate contains rep-teated r...