‘Soft Securitization’: Unconventional Security Issues and the Arctic Council

• Published in: Politik
• Main Authors: Greaves, Wilfrid, Pomerants, Daniel
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Danish
• Published: Institut for Statskundskab, Københavns Universitet 2017
• Subjects: Arctic International Relations in a Widened Security Perspective; Arctic; Arctic Council
• Online Access: https://tidsskrift.dk/politik/article/view/97152

This article assesses the Arctic Council’s role as a security actor in the context of a rapidly changing circumpolar region. It investigates how the Arctic Council uses security language, and which issues it depicts as relevant to Arctic security. The article does this by undertaking textual analysis of ‘securitizing moves’ represented in the Council’s publicly available online documents, including declarations and agreements, policy papers, working group reports, public statements, and other related sources. The findings offer empirical insights into the Arctic Council and the construction of Arctic security issues, as well as theoretical reflections on the analytical usefulness of securitization theory, and the dynamics of constructing unconventional security issues in a multilateral intergovernmental forum.