To better understand the mechanism of regional cooperation, this paper examines cooperation between the Nordic countries from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Regional cooperation can be defined by three “issue-areas”: security, economy and community. This paper argues that the nature of the cooperation plans and their breakdowns in certain issue-areas could lead to the promotion of cooperation in other issue-areas, as the Nordic experience demonstrates.
The first part of this paper shows that efforts to strengthen regional cooperation between the Nordic countries in the community area have been successful. These efforts include creation of The Nordic Council (
Nordiska rådet) and the Nordic passport union in 1952; conclusion of the Nordic Cooperation Treaty (The Helsinki Treaty) in 1962; and amendment of the Helsinki Treaty, creation of The Nordic Council of Ministers (
Nordiska ministerrådet) and conclusion of two cooperation treaties concerning culture and transportation in 1971 and 1972.
The second part of this paper demonstrates that attempts and their failures for regional cooperation in the security area actually all became factors of promoting cooperation in the community area. In fact, there was no institutions established nor treaties signed during the same period. In the late 1940s, there was a failed attempt to make a defense union. Several plans of the Nordic nuclear-weapon-free-zone were proposed in the early 1960s but never bore fruit. At the beginning of 1970s, no plan of security cooperation was proposed.
The third part of this paper shows that although plans of economic regional cooperation were relatively unproductive, they did assist the growth of cooperation in the community area. The first plan was an investigation for the possibility of creating a custom union from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. The actual union was never established. The Nordic Common Market Plan was also discussed but was not put into practice in the latter half of 1950s. In the late 1960s, the NORDEK plan almost turned into reality but the attempt failed due to the Finnish opposition.
Analyzing regional cooperation by focusing on three different areas of cooperation allows us to conclude that cooperation in the community area was not a self-contained process and that plans and their breakbown in the security and economy area had been important factors of promoting cooperation in the community area.
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