Investigating the particularities of regionalization: contested state–federal relations and the politics of Alaska’s Arctic Policy

Abstract

This paper focuses on the particularities of a regionalization process by investigating how a supranational region emerges as a context of, and tool for, political contestation regarding power relations between a sub-national and national government. This is done through an empirical case study of the Arctic Policy of the State of Alaska. The analysis shows how the contested relationship between state and federal governments became re-contextualized in relation to the Arctic due to a newfound federal attention on the region. This culminated in how the Arctic region is perceived within the 'Alaskan' and federal contexts. Additionally, the case study shows that by attempting to transform how the Arctic is perceived within, and enacted through, the policies of the federal government, state actors in Alaska have sought to utilize federal attention on the region and exert an influence on federal policies that affect Alaska. This, in turn, has potential implications for the overall regionalization process of the Arctic itself. The paper contends that rather than deconstructing regionalization processes as wholes, by focusing on the particularities of these processes we can better understand the politics at play. This concurrently helps to illuminate how such politics may affect the trajectory of regionalization itself.