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

Abstract

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.

Apportioning aerosol natural and anthropogenic sources thorough simultaneous aerosol size distributions and chemical composition in the European high Arctic

“…As the DMS production capacity of the ocean depends critically on the phytoplankton species composition and the complex food web mechanisms (Stefels et al, 2007), multidisciplinary studies across these regions are warranted. The recent transformations in the Arctic and their global causes and consequences have put international cooperation in the Arctic Council at the forefront of research in governance (Knecht et al, 2016). Larger atmospheric chemistry and physics datasets are being collected by a number of countries, and this work highlights the benefit that can be gained Atmos.…”

Arctic governance

“…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.…”

“…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.…”

“…These 23 organisations vary in their staffing and ability to represent their interests in all forums (see Knecht, 2017, for an overview of Arctic Council participation), but are generally active in the UN Forum for Indigenous Peoples and meet in the Arctic Council as 'Permanent Participants' . We return to the topic of the diplomacy of indigenous organisations in the international Arctic in Chapter 5.…”

State learning and role playing : international environmental cooperation in the Arctic Council

“…The last contribution is empirical and originates from the material collected for the project. Previously, a questionnaire-survey has investigated the former Artic Council members and participants and their views on the Arctic Council being an effective governance system (Kankaanpää and Young, 2012); moreover, a recent dataset study has provided an analysis on stakeholders' participation in AC meetings (Knecht, 2017). However, the Arctic Council development has not been studied over time through minutes from meetings between Senior Arctic Officials (SAO), at least not to the extent done in this study; in order to explain Russia's cooperative commitment in the Arctic Council, SAOs meeting minutes have previously been analyzed during three chosen time periods (Chater, 2016).…”