Norway’s High North Geopolitics: Continuities and Changes Through Three Decades

Is Arctic governance research in crisis? A pathological diagnosis

“…Should cross-case comparison not be viable for methodological reasons, a second option to consider is within-case analysis of the same case at different points in time (Lijphardt, 1971, p. 689). By way of example, rather than analysing each Arctic policy or strategy document anew and in isolation from the previous status quo, case-sensitive developments could be analysed over time to lay bare the underlying conditions, changes and continuities in Arctic states' foreign policies (for a recent example outside our sample, see Humrich, 2020). Comparative-historical methods (Mahoney & Rueschemeyer, 2003), process-tracing (Beach & Pedersen, 2013) and counterfactual analysis (Tetlock & Belkin, 1996) are some of the tools for within-case comparison that could help remedy the weaknesses of single-case studies and contribute to strengthened causal analysis, but which have not been applied so far.…”