Book Reviews : Nuclear Weapons and Northern Europe—Problems and Prospects of Arms Control, edited by Kari Möttölä with the assistance of Katariina Koivumaa and Tapani Vaahtoranta. The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki 1983
| Author | George Maude |
| Published date | 01 June 1984 |
| Date | 01 June 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/001083678401900206 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
162
doubtful,
the
’method
-of
structured,
focused
comparisons’
would
yield
results
that
are
realistic
and
valid.
Foreign
Pol-
icies
of
Northern
Europe
is
in
fact
char-
acterized
in
part
by
these
kinds
of
objec-
tives,
though
the
set
of
questions
posed
may
not
have
been
made
very
explicit
and
systematic.
Carl-Einar
StAlvant’s
article
on
Nordic
policies
toward
international
economic
cooperation,
to
take
just
one
example,
contains
seeds
of
a
structured
and
focused
comparison.
A
deficiency
of
this
approach
to
com-
parative
research
is
obviously
that
it
does
not
pay
sufficient
attention
to
the
macro-
economic
and
macrosocial
historical
developments
and
their
comparisons.
In
fact
the
policy
orientation
and
the
stress
laid
on
decision-making
may
place
it
somewhat
at
odds
with
macrohistorical
comparisons
which
are
perceptively
divided
by
Theda
Skocpol
and
Margaret
Somers
into
the
’parallel
demonstration
of
theory’,
’the
contrasts
of
contexts’
and
’macro-causal
analysis’.
Macrohistorical
comparisons
are
necessary
in
making
dif-
ferent
causal
patterns
and
their
socio-
economic
backgrounds
visible.
Without
the
identification
and
differentiation
of
these
patterns
the
comparison
of
individ-
ual
decisions,
phenomena
or
turning
points
would
become
too
idiosyncratic.
The
objective
of
comparative
research
should,
in
other
words,
be
to
strive
towards
a
more
general
theory
by
studying
politically
significant
cases
in
their
larger
historical
and
structural
contexts
with
the
aid
of
analytical
and
theoretical
questions
which
are
sufficiently
standardized
in
order
to
allow
generalizations.
GEORGE
MAUDE
College
of
Wooster.
Wooster,
Ohio
Nuclear
Weapons
and
Northern
Europe—Problems
and
Prospects
of
Arms
Control,
edited
by
Kari
Möttölä
with
the
assistance
of
Katariina
Koivumaa
and
Tapani
Vaahtoranta.
The
Finnish
Institute
of
International
Affairs,
Helsinki
1983.
This
volume
is
a
collection
of
articles
pri-
marily
based
on
the
papers
given
at
the
International
Round
Table
Research
Seminar
on
’Nuclear
Weapons
and
North-
ern
Europe’
held
in
Helsinki
by
FIIA
on
2-3
June
1983.
The
Seminar
has
given
cause
for
debate
in
Cooperation
and
Con-
flict
twice
already.
My
article
in
CoCo
4/83
drew
heavily
on
the
Seminar
discus-
sions ;
it
was
commented
in
CoCo
1/84
by
Johan
Jorgen
Holst.
Only
the
Northern
Europeans
could
have
got
together
and
assembled
a
forum
of
regional
security
like
this,
for
in
the
forum
were
represented,
too,
the
antag-
onistic
Super-Powers
as
well
as
several
other
non-Nordic
states.
In
consequence,
as
far
as
the
Nordic
participants
them-
selves
are
concerned,
their
finished
articles
(as
did
their
presentations
during
the
seminar)
express
not
merely
an
attempt
to
understand
and
grapple
with
inter-Nordic
differences:
they
also
rep-
resent
an
endeavour
to
establish
and
mediate
a
Nordic
viewpoint
vis-A-vis
the
Super-Powers.
This
viewpoint
must
apparently
offend
neither
of
the
extra-
sensitive,
over-powerful
units
in
the
bal-
ance
of
terror.
Characteristically
when
in
this
collection
a
Super-Power
is
blamed,
it
is
a
representative
of
the
other
Super-
Power
who
does
the
blaming.
The
Nordics
themselves
don’t
want
to
be
seen
as
taking
sides.
To continue reading
Request your trial