Arctic Policies and Strategies: Analysis, Synthesis, and Trends

The scientific report “Arctic Policies and Strategies – Analysis, Synthesis and Trends” delivers a holistic analysis of existing policies, strategies, and declarations of the relevant Arctic stakeholders. It also includes new and/or emerging trends of Arctic governance and geopolitics in the early 21st century. The analysis, using quantitative and qualitative methods, is based on coding the text of 56 policy documents (in 1996-2019): the strategies and policies of the Arctic States the Arctic Council Observer states; the policies and declarations of the Arctic Indigenous peoples’ organizations (Permanent Participants); and the relevant Arctic Council chairmanship programs and ministerial declarations. It considers how different relevant Arctic actors define and address issues around the following: the human dimension, governance, international cooperation, environmental protection, pollution, climate change, security, safety, economy, tourism, infrastructure, and science & education. Each document was carefully read, the quotes were coded, and used to compare and contrast (percentage-wise) how the different documents address these issues. For each category of stakeholder, the findings are: compared within the category, and discussed with each other category-wise. According to our study, the most-coded quotes of the Arctic States’ policy documents relate to the Governance, Economy, International Cooperation, and Human Dimension indicators, as well as the new Environmental Protection one (when connected to Pollution and Climate Change). The policy documents of the four Indigenous peoples’ organizations explicitly address issues broadly surrounding Indigenous rights, although in different contexts, and those of the Governance indicator both broadly and in detail. Unsurprisingly, all the documents emphasize the importance of ‘Traditional knowledge’. The most-quoted indicator in the Arctic policies/strategies of the nine Observer states is the Science and Education, followed by the International Cooperation and Economy ones. The fourth is the new Environmental protection indicator (when connected to Pollution and Climate Change). Based on all the analyses, there is a separate list of new/emerging trends for each stakeholder: summarizing the current main themes and concluding trends. Based on these, there is the following short list of overall new and/or emerging trends of the future of Arctic governance and geopolitics: 1) Ambivalence of Arctic development, including ‘political inability,’ when a balance is sought between environmental protection and economic activities; 2) State domination based on geopolitical stability and sovereignty vis-à-vis internationalization/globalization based on international treaties, and self-determination; 3) Focus on science, with all Arctic stakeholders being dependent on scientific research and international cooperation in science for problem-solving because of climate change; and 4) Close interrelationship between the Arctic and the Space (e.g., digital security, satellites, meteorology) due to globalization and rapidly advancing climate change in the Arctic.