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The massive expansion of the North Atlantic Organization and the European Union to the former communist countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, but also the Baltic States, have made the geopolitical dynamics of the continent change extensively in the past 20 years. Therefore, integration experience of these countries confronted with the manner of acting of countries such as Norway reveals the changes that occur in the international arena. This article attempts to identify and emphasize through comparative analysis the specificity of Norwegian security and defense systems, correlating this with Norway`s behavior in the international arena. The first part of the paper contains a brief overview of the similarities and differences between the East and the North, both peripheral regions of Europe in the 90s, attached to the European Project by northern and eastern dimensions. The second part of the paper describes the current geopolitical context in the neighboring regions of Norway and Oslo`s foreign and security opportunities. This part includes comparative studies of Oslo`s areas of actions and its state capacity and tools to preserve and create new regions, and thus regional objectives. And finally, the last part is a Norwegian defense policy analysis with perspectives over the cultural environment and social background generated by, in the context of these particular northern policies dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political confrontations have had always implied a struggle between different value systems. This phanomenon takes place at international level, but also at national and local level. Therefore, it would be useful to know which are the opinions of citizens in relation to some values around which disputes are worn for over a hundred years. The purpose of this paper is to identify the attachment of Iasi citizens to some fundamental values in a democracy and a market economy. It was considered that a value is an image of objects, events, and processes considered righteous, moral and desirable. It have been taken into account five values considered, by the literature, important for the functioning of a democratic and capitalist system: participation, conflict, economic equality, government intervention in economy, and orientation towards local or central. The information has been collected in a survey conducted in the city of Iasi, from a representative sample of 738 people. The values were measured using a scale applied to a series of statements. The results seem to indicate that, at more than two and a half decades after the totalitarian regime collapsed, people from Iasi share a contradictory system of values, and these values are associated in a fairly small degree with a democratic regime or with a market economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]