Recreation & tourism (Economic Brief 4)

What environmental and social risks are we facing in relation to increases in tourism, and shipping? What barriers to sustainability in the economic sector of tourism arise from structural problems associated with the industry? This brief suggests a list of potential regulatory recommendations, including a certification scheme, approaches for employment, and integrated spatial planning

What does it take to hold shared responsibility for the Arctic region?

Several states have declared that the Arctic is their shared responsibility at a time when global warming changes the Arctic landscape and attracts the interests of states and corporations from outside the region. Hannes Hansen-Magnusson discusses implications and potential pitfalls of making such a declaration, showing that responsibility is deeply political in its effects. In order to assume responsibility proper, states will need to widen the current formal and informal diplomatic network while facilitating the reconciliation of a diversity of viewpoints within and beyond their own borders

Arctic geopoetics: Russian politics at the North Pole

The article develops a geopoetic approach to Russian Arctic politics. It rests on the empirical observation that due to climate change, the Arctic landscape is undergoing profound transformations, which has led to multilateral governance efforts but also unilateral pursuits. In this general heterogeneity, Russia’s policies have raised the most pressing questions regarding the country’s motivations to engage in the region. Cultural approaches to global politics are most suitable to create holistic understandings and explanations in this regard, but they lack discussing a spatial dimension of Russian identity. By developing a geopoetic account, the article complements this research through methodological insights from critical geography. Geopoetics focuses on the cultural roots and their cognitive-emotional dimension, on the basis of which claims to the Arctic and related policies resonate with a broader audience. The article argues that Russian policies have their foundation in a utopian ideal of Soviet socialist realism that was widely popularised in the 1920s and later decades. Applying the hermeneutic tool of topos, the article highlights that three features stand out that interweave into a coherent imaginary of the Arctic: first, the heroic explorer; second, the conquest of nature; and third, the role of science and technology. Analysts would do well to bear in mind how the Arctic becomes intelligible when commenting on policies

The web of responsibility in and for the Arctic

What does it mean to be responsible in and for the Arctic? This article addresses this question, noting that responsibility has become a core policy norm in different governance areas in recent decades. The article contributes to the current debate on responsibility in global politics, arguing that one should consider not only who is responsible (and what for) but also the capability foundations upon which responsibility is exercised, as well as the underlying normativity of this practice. Instead of only focusing on capabilities as first principles from which responsibilities arise, this article suggests approaching responsibility as a web of relations. On the basis of this theoretical discussion the article turns to two cases of contemporary Arctic policy where we can observe responsibility ‘at work’. The fields of search and rescue and sustainable development are both marked by a cooperative approach among (state and non-state) parties, whose interactions centre on a particular ethical understanding of responsibility rather than on power-oriented politics. Yet each policy field contains specific dilemmas, as Arctic governance is characterised by a web of responsibility that comprises multiple subjects in charge and/or objects for which they are responsible