Baltic Sea Region Identity Construction in Political Elites Discourse

The Baltic Sea Region is a heterogeneous region and a recent phenomenon which attracts academics, politicians and international organizations such as European Union and OSCE attention. Heterogeneity in the region creates challenges to common identity construction. Nation-states are main actors in the Baltic Sea Region and they are building a set of ideas to identify themselves in contrast to the other. These sets of ideas can be found in nation-states political discourse. Political elites are directly linked to the political discourse and they have a major role in identity construction process. Political elites discourse gives the option to research main denominators of regional identity construction. The theoretical model introduced in this book is to research regional identity construction. The research contributes to the Baltic Sea Region identity studies by focusing on the all region countries discourse to create a map of the nation-state identity construction and to see the relationship with regional identity construction process.