THE KARELIA CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION PROGRAMME : A soft space on the Finnish-Russian hard borders

Abstract: The study analyzes the Karelia cross-border cooperation programme and its activity under the theoretical framework of soft spaces, exploring the processes through which it overcomes the administrative and political boundaries of the Finnish-Russian ‘hard borders’. The ability of these cross-border areas to cooperate may appear to conflict with the geopolitical context in which they are embedded. The historical path, however, reveals a process where conflicts over changes of borders and political scenarios coexisted with the sharing of spatial identities and development challenges. The study demonstrates how stakeholders are motivated both by functional needs of cooperation towards regional development, as well as desires to change existent practices in the Russian side. Through informal and semi-formal processes of negotiation employed by several stakeholders, the regions attempt to overcome the clashes between EU, Finnish and Russian political and administrative discourses. Thus, it is argued that the cross-border cooperation programme constitutes a soft space in-between regional, national and supranational levels, as well as an enabler of other soft spaces in the local crossborder level.