Hoten i Arktis med Sverige i fokus

• Main Author: Blixte, Sebastian
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Lunds universitet/Statsvetenskapliga institutionen 2020
• Subjects: The Arctic; narrative analysis; threat narratives; securitization; Law and Political Science; Arctic; Lanes; Arktis; Arktis*; Climate change; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9008705

In recent years, the Arctic has attracted focus, news media and authorities have made it clear that tensions in security policies have increased. To gain a further understanding of how Sweden (as a state) relates to the Arctic region, this study examines official sources using narrative analysis through the lens of securitization theory. This study examines how Swedish official threat narratives are described and constructed in the period 2008-2019 and how these change over time. Climate change is affecting the Arctic’s delicate environment and its inhabitants, sea ice-melting creates new possibilities in extracting natural resources and new shipping lanes, these possibilities in turn creating new threats. Economic interest and increasing competitiveness have led to an worsened security policy situation. The threat narratives are conjoined and interact, generating in turn new threats. The narrative in the Arctic is one describing East-West interest in the region. The threat narrative contains one recurring threat throughout the studied period, climate change. Changes in this narrative start as diffuse and vague descriptions of threats towards clear threats to the Arctic’s environment and inhabitants. Over time, the main theme of the narrative shifts towards the militarization of the Arctic focusing on Russia. This affecting Sweden, a member of the Artic Nordic countries, with its own Arctic territory to safeguard. This shift in the Swedish threat narrative is most likely not a solely Swedish phenomenon.