Political Cooperation and Regional Integration in the Arctic (1996-2019): a region building

• Main Author: Escudé-Joffres, Camille
• Other Authors: Centre de recherches internationales (CERI), Sciences Po (Sciences Po)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Guillaume Devin
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: Arctic; region building; regional cooperation; Arctique; region-building; coopération régionale; [SHS.SCIPO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Political science; [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; Arctique*; Climate change
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02980869; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02980869/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02980869/file/Th%C3%A8se%20Camille%20Escud%C3%A9%20Joffres.pdf

Over the past thirty years, regional governance has been built in the Arctic thanks to the interaction of different levels of political action corresponding to various actors: states, civil society, indigenous organizations, federal and local governments, NGOs, private companies. The Arctic is now involved in various mechanisms that tend towards integration, defined as the process by which the regularity and intensity of interactions between societies increases. We are here analyzing how political governance has constructed the Arctic as a political region. Post-Cold War top-down political cooperation has led to visible regional institutional integration in the Arctic. This institutional integration stems from the state’s desire to protect the environment as a pretext for political cooperation, but also from informal transnational networks, scientific and indigenous. It then appears that in a context of increased politicization of the region due to the consequences of climate change, the construction of the Arctic region becomes for the Arctic States a means of excluding certain actors, gradually pushed out of decision-making bodies. In return, the latter widen the limits of the region through new forms of political governance (informal forums, club diplomacy), clearly showing that the region is a political and social reality, always changing and challenged in space and time. En l’espace de trente ans, la construction de la gouvernance politique régionale s’est faite en Arctique grâce à l’interaction de différentes échelles d’action politique correspondant à divers acteurs : États, société civile, organisations autochtones, gouvernements fédéraux et locaux, ONG, entreprises. L’Arctique est à présent impliquée dans divers mécanismes qui tendent vers une intégration, définie comme processus par lequel la régularité et l’intensité des interactions entre les sociétés s’accroissent. Il s’agit donc ici d’analyser la manière dont la gouvernance politique à toutes les échelles a construit l’espace arctique comme une ...