5th NORDIC-BALTIC CONFERENCE IN REGIONAL SCIENCE
GLOBAL-LOCAL INTERPLAY IN THE BALTIC SEA REGION
Pärnu, Estonia, October 1-4, 1998

Christopher J. Smith
Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI)
University of Tampere
Akerlundinkatu 3, P.O.Box 607, FIN-33101 Tampere, Finland
Tel.: 358 3 215 7696    Fax: 358 3 223 6620

This paper seeks to apply the neo-Gramscian inspired work of Robert Cox - in particular his thesis on changing state forms - to the Baltic states as they wait in the anterroom of EU enlargement illustrating the intimate relationship between globalization and regionalization in Europe, and in particular, the European Unions` major political and ideological role in this process.
Globalization and regionalization as part of the same process represent the re-ordering of the capitalist form of state. Under this process, the nature and tasks of the state within the global economy and global society are changing. For Cox, the state`s functions, roles and responsibilites are socially and historically determined, and thus are open to constant change and renewal. The key move in Cox is therefore his desire to examine the relationship between state and civilsociety, recognising that the state takes many different forms, not only in different historical periods, but also within the same period. Thus the point is to historicize the state and to locate it within the full array of social relations rather than to reify it as a singular entity unrelated to the changing nature of social forces.
The internationalization of the state under globalization is thus for Cox of specific importance - power is not relinquished to the "invisible hand" of the market in quite the same way as neoliberalism would have us believe, instead key government agencies in the financial realm along with elements of the foreign ministry and the central executive office (President of Prime Minister depending of the actual country involved) are increasingly linked to eachother and more significantly to external institutions such as the EU, the IMF and the World Bank. In consequence, states are continually forced to adopt policies which reflect "international" as much as "domestic" imperatives. The impact of the changing nature of state is therefore profound in terms of the implications for domestic governance, meaningful citizenship and democratic legitimacy.
From this standpoint the paper investigates yhe evolving EU-Baltic states relationship, in paricular; the nature of EU discourse on regionalization; the empirical reality of the "Europe Agreements" negotiated with the Baltic states - certainly in their post-communist incarnation, it is expected that this group of interlinked cases will exhibit a particularly strong theoretical fit with Coxs`basic premise on the role of the twin but interlinked processes of globalization and regionalization in the evolution of state forms.