The strategy of assistance : Swedish environmental support to the Baltic states 1991-1996

Sammanfattning: Sweden has provided considerable amounts of environmental assistance to the Baltic States since their regained independence. To explain the existence and character of this support program, the rationales behind the Swedish policy have to be analyzed.This dissertation uses a rational choice approach, where it is assumed that the Swedish support to the Baltic States in the 1991-1996 period primarily was guided by self-interest. It is shown that there has been remarkable agreement among the political parties concerning the environmental support to the Baltic States during the whole period. This makes the unitary actor assumption reasonable. Swedish foreign aid history and earlier international environmental cooperation is provided as a background to the analysis of the support policy.It is shown that Sweden tended to favor support projects where the environmental impact had a trans-boundary character, thus implying that Swedish environmental interests were affected. This choice of policy introduced a bias in the allocation of environmental investments in the Baltic States, as they have been required to fmance the largest part of the investments with local funding. The consequence has been that issue-areas that have not been attractive to foreign aid providers have been neglected.