Roads to Autonomy. Similar paths, different outcomes in two Inuit regions

• Main Author: Knapskog, Arild
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: The University of Bergen 2017
• Subjects: Canada; case study; qualitative research; self-government; process tracing; 731114; Nunavik; inuit
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1956/17419

The purpose of this study is to analyze and explain why two Inuit regions in Canada, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut, experienced different outcomes after extensive tripartite negotiations for self-government. Although both regions appear to have similar basic features, the Nunavik self-government agreement failed in a referendum in 2011, while the Nunatsiavut agreement was ratified six years earlier. I present a set of factors that have been known to influence outcomes in self-government negotiations. The factors I consider are the compatibility of government and Aboriginal group goals, minimal use of confrontational tactics, Aboriginal group cohesion and government perceptions of Aboriginal group. I also pay heed to institutional and contextual factors, such as the evolving institutional framework of Canada’s self-government policy and the emergence of multilevel governance structures in Inuit regions. In order to investigate this puzzle, I do a multiple case study and utilize the strategy of process tracing. Using semi-structured interviews, newspaper data, government reports, meeting minutes and scholarly literature I seek to identify the factors that might have contributed to Nunavik and Nunatsiavut’s different outcomes. The findings indicate that the divergent outcomes in the two cases best can be explained by the lack of group cohesion in Nunavik as compared to Nunatsiavut. In addition, I find that the layering of self-government policy and the emergence of a multilevel governance structure in Nunavik affected the self-government negotiation outcome in Nunavik negatively. In contrast to Nunatsiavut where there did not exist any multilevel governance structure, and which was positively impacted by the more extensive self-government policy that emerged over the years. Masteroppgåve SAMPOL350