Book review: Breaking through: Understanding sovereignty and security in the circumpolar arctic
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00207020211067276 |
| Author | Janice Cavell |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Ethiopia for wider representation in a second edition. An analysis of Rwanda’s
rising soft power profile will show its soft power resources such as its genocide history,
post-genocide political culture of gender equality which has given it global attention,
the resultant tourism attraction, science and technology, the military support to Africa
and the world, as well as Rwanda’s responsible statism (effective use of state power to
deliver public goods) and Paul Kagame’s iconic personality, both of which also double
as some of the limitations of Kigali’s soft power. In spite of this, Rwanda is gaining
serious smart power traction, especially amongst youths, in Africa as well as globally. I
believe there is enough there to add in a future book on Africa’s rising soft power that
will include more countries in Africa.
Overall, the book is an important contribution to understanding the international
relations behaviour of African states through their own prisms. It greatly enhances the
literature on African soft power politics and on how to use soft power to greater effect in
building African agency on the global stage. I therefore recommend it to anyone
interested in African politics and development, its foreign policies, regional power-
hood, cultural studies, and African studies more broadly.
Wilfrid Greaves and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, eds.
Breaking Through: Understanding Sovereignty and Security in the Circumpolar Arctic.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 271
pp. $65.00 (cloth); $32.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-1-4875-0486-1 (cloth);
978-1-4875-2352-7 (paper).
Reviewed by: Janice Cavell, (janice.cavell@international.gc.ca), Global Affairs Canada, Ottawa,
Canada
The Arctic, it has repeatedly been said since the early 2000s, is hot. Increasing heat
seems to be an apt metaphor not merely because of climate change, but because many
commentators foresee a rise in economic, political, and perhaps even military conflicts
throughout the region. After the end of the Cold War there was a brief period in which
international cooperation flourished, culminating in the creation of the Arctic Coun-
cil in 1996. But predictions that climate change will open up the region to resource
extraction and commercial shipping, combined with increasing tensions between a
resurgent Russia and the NATOalliance —to which the United States, Canada, Norway,
and Denmark all belong—have made conflict a dominant theme in the media and in
academic debates. In Canada at least, old fears over sovereignty loss have been revived.
Everywhere in the north circumpolar region, security is a matter of concern. But does it
mean military security, or security against poverty, inadequate food and housing,
environmental contamination, and all the other ills that threaten the Arctic’s Indigenous
inhabitants?
Book Reviews 617
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