Arctic book series completed: Conflict or cooperation ahead?
What was once one of the least-explored areas in the world has become a region featuring prominently on the international agenda.
With the publication of the third and final volume of the Arctic Governance series, the Fridtjof Nansen Institute is proud to present the latest research and analysis on ‘the scramble for the Arctic’.
Commercial and miliatary interest
The Arctic is undergoing profound and rapid changes. With the sea ice melting – a result of accelerating climate change – global governance has become vital. The Polar North is known to hold considerable oil and gas reserves, and its position involves trading as well as military advantages.
The third and final volume of the Arctic Governance series, Norway, Russia and Asia, investigates the behaviour and foreign-policy discourses of key actors, specifically the relations and potentially competing interests involving Norway, Russia and several Asian states. A key insight is that there is no single ‘Arctic’, despite agreement on basic governance and management structures in the region. Opportunities and challenges are perceived very differently in different parts of the Arctic, for climatic, geographical, economic and cultural reasons.
Law and politics, energy and resources
Given this mosaic picture, it is essential to avoid simple and over-confident analysis of what is happening or going to happen in the Arctic, FNI researchers argue.
To understand what the Arctic is and what it can be, accurate and reliable analyses are a necessity. We must, more than ever, look at what is actually happening in the region, not just what we hope, or fear will happen. Researchers at FNI will continue to base their work on this precept’, says Senior Research Fellow Svein Vigeland Rottem.
The Arctic Governance series is published by London-based I.B. Tauris (an imprint under the Bloomsbury Group) and edited by Svein Vigeland Rottem and Ida Folkestad Soltvedt. The first volume, Law and Politics, examined key governance structures in the Arctic. The second volume, Energy, Living Marine Resources and Shipping identified commercial and resource-related potentials in the Arctic. And now the third, concluding, volume has been published: Norway, Russia and Asia, edited by Svein Vigeland Rottem, Ida Folkestad Soltvedt and Geir Hønneland.
(+47) 47480680
post@fni.no