Can Climate Change be Successfully Incorporated into Security Policy? : Framing Climate Security and Defence in Finnish Comprehensive Security Policy through the 21st Century

The comprehensive security model of Finland’s security policy identifies anything that can pose a threat to the functioning of society and the well-being of citizens as a security threat. Climate change is included as a threat to security under this policy, but its presentation and framing as a threat, and who it is framed as a threat to, varies throughout policy documentation. This thesis analyses how climate change is framed as a security issue in Finnish security policy by the Government of Finland and the Finnish Defence Forces, and how well comprehensive security policy includes climate issues on an overarching policy level. Frame analysis is utilised to identify different framings of climate security in policy by dividing definitions of security into four separate frames: traditional, international, human, and planetary security. These four groups each present a different object of security: each of them is focused on preserving the security of a specific group or institution. Qualitative content analysis is then used to analyse the frames identified and in situating the frames into a wider political context. The main data consists of the Foreign and Security Policy Reports and Government Programmes of the Government of Finland, as well as the climate policy and environmental reporting of the Finnish Defence Forces. According to the analysis, the Government of Finland and the Finnish Defence Forces, the two main actors responsible for security policy and its implementation, frame climate change regularly as a threat to the state through a traditional frame of security, and to the stability of the current international system through an international frame. Frames of human security are largely absent, and planetary frames do not appear in policy documentation. The security effects of climate change to Finland are perceived as mostly secondary effects which threaten state security. Climate change is rarely framed in security policy as a direct threat to citizens, and never as a threat to the environment, even though a comprehensive understanding of security could include threats to citizens as concrete risks which need to be responded to and managed.

Grantor dc:publisher

Helsingin yliopisto

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Raami, Johannes

• Finland
• comprehensive security
• securitisation
• climate change
• climate security
• Finnish Defence Forces
• Government of Finland

Statement dc:rights

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10138/624918

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/624918