Non-State Actors in Arctic Council Governance

Wehrmann, Dorothea

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-50884-3_10

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…As a matter of fact, the STAPAC dataset has its limits here as it does not provide any information on how actively observers in fact contribute to Council meetings they are present at, whether they really just ‘observe’ or to what extent and how successful they make use of the participatory rights given to them by the Council. Comparative case studies are possibly better equipped to address these issues with in-depth knowledge of individual cases, and have already brought to light profound insights into the nuances and essential differences of observers’ interests, strategies and impact on Arctic governance (e.g., Stokke, 2014; Śmieszek and Kankaanpää, 2015; Wehrmann, in press). What the STAPAC dataset adds to current research is a more complete picture of stakeholder behaviour in Arctic Council proceedings across time, meetings and the different stakeholder groups involved, which would also allow hypothesis testing about the conditions under which certain actors may or may not contribute to international governance in regional institutions.…”

Section: Discussion: Old Debates and New Agendasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The politics of Arctic international cooperation: Introducing a dataset on stakeholder participation in Arctic Council meetings, 1998–2015

Knecht¹

2016

Cooperation and Conflict

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Contemporary Arctic transformations and their global causes and consequences have put international cooperation in the Arctic Council, the region's most important forum for addressing Arctic affairs, at the forefront of research in Northern governance. With interest in Arctic regional affairs in world politics being at a historical high, the actual participation and contribution by interested actors to regional governance arrangements, such as the Arctic Council, has remained very much a blind spot. This article introduces and analyses a novel dataset on stakeholder participation in the Arctic Council (STAPAC) for all member states, Permanent Participants and observers in Ministerial, Senior Arctic Officials' and subsidiary body meetings between 1998 and 2015. The article finds that participation in the Arctic Council varies significantly across meeting levels and type of actors, and that new admissions to the Council, a source of major contestation in recent debates, do not necessarily result in more actors attending. The article further discusses these findings in light of three prevalent debates in Arctic governance research, and shows the empirical relevance of the STAPAC dataset for the study of Arctic cooperation and conflict, observer involvement in the Arctic Council system and political representation of indigenous Permanent Participants.

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Section: Discussion: Old Debates and New Agendasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The politics of Arctic international cooperation: Introducing a dataset on stakeholder participation in Arctic Council meetings, 1998–2015

Knecht¹

2016

Cooperation and Conflict

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“…Still somewhat underexposed is the role of supra-, sub-, and non-state actors in Arctic affairs, ranging from nongovernmental and intergovernmental organisations [163][164][165][166] [175]. Another interesting strand of literature is on the relationship between indigenous peoples and (extractive) industries [176] as well as the role of indigenous corporations and their impacts on the political power of indigenous peoples [177,178].…”

Section: New Actors and Power Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Societal Impacts of a Rapidly Changing Arctic

Stephen

2018

Curr Clim Change Rep

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This review article makes six observations about the current body of research on the societal impacts of a changing Arctic. First, climate change and globalisation are the dominant drivers of societal impacts in the Arctic. Second, many contributions focus on the impacts in concrete sectors of society, often from an opportunities-and-risks perspective, which tends to blur the boundary to more policy-oriented work. Third, the mantra of the sustainable development of the Arctic or Arctic sustainability pervades considerations of Arctic societal impacts. Fourth, societal and environment change in the Arctic is increasingly analysed using the image of the Global Arctic, highlighting the inextricable linkages between Arctic and global processes and systems and thus the entangled fate of the North and the entire globe. Fifth, an increasing number of actors is seen as being involved in societal and environmental transformations in the Arctic, often conveyed through the (often ill-defined) stakeholder concept. Sixth, Arctic indigenous peoples are depicted as the group most vulnerable to the societal impacts of a changing Arctic, but are increasingly the subject of research in the form of rights-holders and active participants in governance, law, politics, and research. Challenges for future research include achieving greater clarity and reflexivity around key concepts, and de-essentialising the Arctic via the use of comparative methods on cases both within and beyond the Arctic.

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“…State interests are often understood from both a realist perspective, in which a state's interest in territory, sovereignty or security is taking as given analytical starting (Knecht, 2017; Shadian, 2014;Spence, 2016;Wehrmann, 2017). This book builds upon the scholarship illustrating the various positions and interests of key Arctic actors and seeks to understand how these interests fare when brought into the social space of Arctic crossborder governance.…”

Section: Articulating and Pursuing Arctic Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies have examined the positions of key Arctic states (Jensen, 2013 andJensen, 2015 on Norway; Wilson Rowe, 2009, Laruelle, 2013and Sergunin and Konyshev, 2015Griffiths et al, 2011 on Canada). There is also growing attention to the roles played by indigenous peoples' organisations, non-state actors and non-Arctic states in shaping Arctic governance (Knecht, 2017;Shadian, 2014;Spence, 2016;Wehrmann, 2017). This book builds upon the scholarship illustrating the various positions and interests of key Arctic actors and seeks to understand how these interests fare when brought into the social space of Arctic crossborder governance.…”

Section: Regional Arctic Institutions/ Legal Framework/ Regimesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wehrmann (2017) suggests that on certain technical issues, such as oil-spill prevention, NGOs may be important at early stages but are increasingly seen as irrelevant if not able to provide specific, technical expertise on the issues at hand. She also notes that NGOs may have better access to and influence within the Arctic Council WGs, as opposed to task forces established by the Arctic Council states to facilitate binding agreement on an Arctic issue (Wehrmann, 2017).…”

Section: Ngos and Their Representativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Arctic governance

Rowe¹

2018

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This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Out of House Publishing AcknowledgementsThis book would have been impossible to carry out without the contributions of others.I am grateful to all of the interviewees from many years from Moscow; Murmansk; Ottawa; Washington, DC; Iqaluit; Copenhagen; Oslo; Anchorage; and elsewhere. All of these interviewees are busy practitioners, whose responsibilities and schedules are not necessarily designed to accommodate discussing questions with a researcher. Yet they found the time and energy to meet with me, and their insights have been invaluable.The enthusiasm of these practitioners is matched by a thriving world of Arctic social-science scholars, who continuously produce so much new, interesting research that I had to keep updating the references of this book until the very last minute. Discussions with this community of scholars, established and junior, at project workshops, at the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, Arctic Circle and Arctic Frontiers have been inspiring and formative. My 'long ago' friends and teachers from student days at the Scott Polar Research Institute continue to shape my thinking. My 'part-time' colleagues, Frode Mellemvik, Anatoli Bourmistrov and Elena Dybtsyna, as well as students at the High North Centre for Business at Nord University in Bodø, have increased my understanding of Arctic politics.I also appreciate the efforts of the anonymous reviewers who took time to comment, and of Jessica Shadian, who looked closely at the manuscript for me at an important juncture. From the days of the Greek cartographers dreaming about Ultima Thule at the edges of the known world, the cold reaches of the northern hemisphere have inspired grandiose caricatures of risk and opportunity. The region is often imagined from a distance as sublime, exceptional and prone to extremes. Out of space and out of time, as Poe put it, the circumpolar North is frequently envisioned as fundamentally apart from the complexities, indeterminacies and intricacies of life and politics in other parts of the globe. We see some of this exceptionalism in the application of dichotomies to the Arctic: the Arctic will either be preserved as humanity's last wilderness, or plundered by coastal states jealously guarding their natural resource treasure chests. All Arctic states are completely equal in Arctic governance, or the USA and Russia dominate militarily and diplomatically against a ve...

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Non-State Actors in Arctic Council Governance

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

The politics of Arctic international cooperation: Introducing a dataset on stakeholder participation in Arctic Council meetings, 1998–2015

The politics of Arctic international cooperation: Introducing a dataset on stakeholder participation in Arctic Council meetings, 1998–2015

Societal Impacts of a Rapidly Changing Arctic

Arctic governance

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