Contributors

Christofer Berglund is project researcher at the School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University, and senior lecturer in the Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University, Sweden. He is the principal investigator for the project “Conscription as Political Socialization in Divided Societies? Evidence from Post-Soviet Estonia and Post-Independence Finland.” His most recent articles have appeared in Problems of Post-Communism, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, and Europe-Asia Studies.

Teemu Häkkinen is adjunct professor in the Department of History and Ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His primary areas of research include parliamentary history, conceptual history, and the history of foreign- and defense-policy decision making in the Finnish, Swedish, and British contexts. Most recently, he has conducted research on defense-related public attitudes as well as on the legitimacy of the United Nations. Häkkinen has published in journals such as Parliaments, Estates and Representation, Contributions to the History of Concepts, European Review of History/Revue européenne d histoire, Journal of European Integration History, and Parliamentary History.

Linda Hart is a scholar of political and legal sociology. From 2018 to 2022 she worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a variety of projects in war studies and military sociology at the Finnish National Defense University in Helsinki. Prior to that appointment, Hart held positions at the University of Helsinki and at the University of Turku, Finland. She obtained her doctorate in 2016 from the University of Helsinki and she has published articles in Social Politics, European Societies, and Journal of Law and Society.

Miina Kaarkoski is a postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish National Defense University in Helsinki. Her research interests include defense and security politics, political decision making, and public opinion of national defense. She coedited Maanpuolustustahto suomessa (Willingness to Defend in Finland, 2020) with Teemu Häkkinen and Jouni Tilli. Currently, she is studying the influence of information on public opinion and agenda setting on social media.

Kairi Kasearu is professor of empirical sociology at the University of Tartu, Estonia. Her primary areas of research are military-civilian relations, conscription systems in Europe, Estonian conscription and reserve force, the will to defend and public opinion, and social exclusion and inclusion. She is the principal investigator for the project “Development of Resource Management in Defense Sector.” She has recently published in Armed Forces and Society, Journal of Baltic Studies, and Journal of Estonian Military Studies.

Juhan Kivirähk is an analyst at the Institute of Social Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He has over thirty-five years of experience in public opinion and social research in Estonia, with his primary areas of research being political opinion polling and national defense. He has held leading positions in several Estonian polling companies and in the International Centre for Defence and Security. His publications deal with Russian influence activities, the attitudes of the Russian-speaking population of Estonia, and military sociology. He has published in the edited volume Humanitarian Dimension of Russian Foreign Policy toward Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltic States as well as in the Journal of Military Studies, among other publications.

Ida Olenius is a PhD candidate in church history at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests include the Church of Sweden’s changing role in society, relationships between church and state, and Christianity and national identity. Her thesis concerns the Church of Sweden’s attempts, during World War II, to contribute to the strengthening of the “spiritual preparedness” of the Swedish people: their defense will, spirit for self-sacrifice, and sense of duty. For her master’s thesis she studied the establishment of a Swedish parish in Helsinki, Finland, from 1919 to 1922.

Teemu Tallberg is professor in military sociology at the Finnish National Defense University in Helsinki. His research interests include conscription, the relationship between citizens and national defense, organization studies, national identity and ethnicity, and gender and sexuality in the armed forces. Prior to his professorship, Tallberg worked at University of Helsinki, Hanken School of Economics, and the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.