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 national considerations and foreign policies made by the eight Arctic governments - Russia, the United States (US), Canada, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. Going beyond the Arctic states, this course will further expose students to Arctic interests and policies of non-Arctic actors such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Japan, South Korea, India, and Singapore. The course will also consider the involvement of supranational organizations (the EU) and intergovernmental associations (NATO) in regional affairs. The course will be grounded in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) in order to provide the students a core set of analytical tools that can be applied to the study of Arctic and non-Arctic state’s foreign affairs and policies.