Contemporary Arctic Politics

The Arctic region is undergoing multifaceted environmental, political, and socio-economic changes that are attracting attention from states from across the Northern Hemisphere. This course will introduce students to the contemporary Arctic political developments and inter-state relations as well as the main foreign and security policies and strategies of states that have interests in the Arctic region. In doing so, the course will first include a focus on broader political and security issues that impact regional affairs and governance such as the (re)emerging Great Power competition. The course will then present the key Arctic approaches of the great powers of the international system, namely Russia, the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Going beyond these, the course will further introduce the national considerations and foreign policies of both Arctic (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Canada) and non-Arctic (Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore) powers vis-à-vis the Arctic region. The course will also look at the involvement of supranational organizations (the EU) and intergovernmental associations (NATO) in Arctic regional affairs. The course will be grounded in foreign policy analysis in order to provide the students with a core set of analytical tools that can be applied to the study of Arctic and non-Arctic state’s foreign affairs and policies.