Finland’s international defence and security cooperation as a shelter-seeking strategy in the views of the Finnish MPs in the era of great power competition

Abstract

Great power politics and current developments of multipolarity challenge the rules-based order and international environment in which small states, including Finland, operate. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Finland has joined NATO and strengthened 
its bilateral and multilateral defence cooperation. In this article, we look at international defence and security cooperation as a shelter-seeking strategy. The article relies on original interview data (N=22) of the members of the Finnish parliament (2019-2023 term), which 
will be examined through theoretically-oriented qualitative content analysis focusing on international cooperation from the perspective of shelter theory. The study shows that shelter-seeking takes place in both bi- and multilateral manners, but there are significant differences in costs and benefits and drivers behind shelter-seeking.