Raimo Väyrynen

Raimo Väyrynen     (political scientist)
Born	17 April 1947 Kiuruvesi, Finland
Nationality	Finnish
Alma mater	University of Tampere
Member of	European Leadership Network
Finnish political scientist and director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Raimo Veikko Antero Väyrynen is a political scientist and former director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (UPI). He is best known in the United States , where he has been a full professor and director of a research institute at the University of Notre Dame, as a visiting professor at the Universities of Princeton and Minnesota, and as a visiting researcher at MIT and Harvard University. Väyrynen's extensive work is focused on international relations theory and history, international economics, and peace and conflict research. Väyrynen was the Director General of the Academy of Finland from 2004 to 2007.

He attended the 2008 Bilderberg meeting.

Education

Väyrynen graduated from the University of Tampere with a bachelor's degree in social sciences in 1968 and a licentiate in 1970, and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1973.

Career

Väyrynen worked as a specialist researcher at the Institute for Peace and Conflict Research in 1970–72 and as director of the department in 1972–78. Väyrynen was appointed Professor of International Political Science in General Political Science at the University of Helsinki in 1978, a position he held until 1998. At the University of Helsinki he was Head of the Department of Political Science for several years and Dean and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Political Science. From 1979 to 1983, Väyrynen was a member of the Board of the University of Lapland and was also a docent in international relations at the same university for a long time. He has been the Chairman of the Board of the University of Lapland since 2009. Väyrynen headed the Research Council of the University of Helsinki in 2002–2004.

Väyrynen raised a foreign policy uproar in early 1983. At a meeting of the Pugwash scientists, referring to the lively nuclear weapons debate at the time, he expressed the view that the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty and the Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 did not legally rule out the possibility of the Soviet Union placing nuclear weapons in Finland. Väyrynen expressed his position in a closed meeting, but it leaked to the public through the afternoon newspapers. President Mauno Koivisto was angry at Väyrynen's statement and considered it offensive to the Soviet Union, even though Väyrynen's interpretation was in itself technically correct. In a speech at the closing ceremony of the parliament in early March, Koivisto emphasized that Finland does not allow any state to deploy nuclear weapons in its territory, and no one has tried to do so.

From 1993 to 2004, Väyrynen was a permanent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, and from 1993 to 1998 he headed the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the same university. In the United States, Väyrynen has also worked as a Fulbright researcher at MIT and Harvard University, and as a visiting professor at Princeton and the University of Minnesota. His other international responsibilities include membership of the UN University Board on behalf of the Nordic countries, vice-presidency of the International Studies Association, chairmanship of the Copenhagen Peace and Conflict Research Institute, membership of the Oslo International Peace Research Institute and Olof Palme's International Security Committee.

Other Positions

In addition to his university duties, Väyrynen has been chairman of the Finnish United Nations Association (1980–1985), the Finnish Social Science Association (1983–1986), the Society for Sports Science (1990–1993) and as a member and chairman of the Foreign Ministry 's Disarmament Advisory Board (1975–1988). Väyrynen was elected a member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences in 1992. Since 2007, he has been the chairman of its social sciences department.

From 2004 to 2007, Väyrynen served as the Director General of the Academy of Finland, having was previously Chairman of its Social Science Committee from 1989 to 1991 and as a member from 1974 to 1976. During these years he was also a member of the Nordic Committee for Social Sciences (NOS-S) and a member of the Social Sciences Committee of the European Science Foundation (ESF). During his term as President of the Academy, he was a member of the Board of the European Science Foundation and the Scientific Council of the European Commission (EURAB), as well as as a member and Chairman of the Board of the European University Institute (EUI). In 2007, he was elected Chair of the ESF Scientific Council. In 2007–2008, Väyrynen also worked in Kazakhstan as a science and technology policy advisor to the government. In 2008 he led the international evaluation of the Danish Institute of International Relations (DIIS) and in 2010 the evaluation of the social sciences at the University of Gothenburg.

In the spring of 2008, the dissatisfaction of Väyrynen's operations with its former management and employees caused a stir in the Institute of Foreign Policy. However, Väyrynen survived an oral remark by the government about “reckless alcohol use” and a call to him and the institute’s program directors, Tapani Vaahtoranta and Hanna Ojanen, to “improve the work atmosphere”. Väyrynen was the director of Upi from February 2007 and his employment was to continue until 2011. However, Väyrynen announced on his own initiative in the spring of 2009 that he would retire at the beginning of 2010. He was succeeded by Teija Tiilikainen.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/2008	5 June 2008	8 June 2008	US Virginia Chantilly	The 56th Bilderberg, Chantilly, Virginia, 139 guests

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References

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