Governmentality of the Arctic as an international region
| Author | Andreas Vasilache,Mathias Albert |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0010836717703674 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836717703674
Cooperation and Conflict
2018, Vol. 53(1) 3 –22
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836717703674
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Governmentality of the Arctic
as an international region
Mathias Albert and Andreas Vasilache
Abstract
Linked to the image of a wild and still-to-be-explored territory, as well as to images of the
region as one of new economic opportunities, discourses on the Arctic also tie in with issues of
climate change, cooperation and conflict, Arctic governance, international law and the situation
and rights of indigenous people, as well as Great Power politics. Taken together, these aspects
characterize a region whose formation is different from regionalization processes in other parts
of the world. As the regional peculiarity of the Arctic is reflected by a variety and plurality of
representations, discourses, perceptions and imaginaries, it can usefully be analyzed as a region
of unfolding governmentality. The present article argues that the prospects for the Arctic are
strongly intertwined with perceptions and depictions of it as an international region subject to
emerging practices of governmentality. By drawing on both Foucault’s texts and governmentality
studies in international relations (IR), we discuss how the Arctic is affected by governmental
security rationalities, by specific logics of political economy and order-building, as well as
becoming a subject for biopolitical rationalizations and imaginaries. The discourses and practices
of governmentality that permeate the Arctic contribute to its spatial, figurative and political
reframing and are aimed at making it a governable region that can be addressed by, and accessible
for, ordering rationalities and measures.
Keywords
Arctic, governmentality, regionalization, biopolitics, Foucault, pole
Introduction1
From a historical perspective, the Arctic seems to be on a roller-coaster ride in terms of
public attention. The extensive media coverage, pathos, and public and official enthusi-
asm aroused by Arctic and Antarctic exploration in the second half of the 19th and early
20th centuries, notably in the United Kingdom and other countries passionate about
Corresponding author:
Andreas Vasilache, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Universitaetsstrasse 25, D-33615 Bielefeld,
Germany.
Email: Andreas.Vasilache@uni-bielefeld.de
703674CAC0010.1177/0010836717703674Cooperation and ConflictAlbert and Vasilache
research-article2017
Article
4 Cooperation and Conflict 53(1)
exploration, only started to wane with the outbreak of World War I. Although the Arctic
played an important role in the military calculus of World War II and in the Cold War, for
decades it never received as much attention again as it did in the heroic age of explora-
tion. This situation changed markedly again from the late 1990s onwards. The Arctic had
a major comeback in terms of global public attention. Not only did it epitomize the con-
sequences of global climate change. It also – again – served as a point of reference from
which grand thought schemes could be projected. Thus, for example, the prospect of
ice-free sea lanes along the Northern Sea Route and through the Northwest Passage gave
rise to a wealth of predictions about a major shift in the global shipment of goods. With
the benefit of hindsight, it seems to be pretty clear that many of these predictions were
always more a product of wishful thinking than of serious forecasts, and the general
‘hype’ surrounding the Arctic seems to be receding.
The present contribution argues that the prospects for the Arctic are strongly intertwined
with dominant perceptions and depictions of it as an international region, subject to emerg-
ing practices of governmentality.2 Practices of ‘governmentality’ here, as will be further
outlined below, are rationalities, technologies and mechanisms that (co-)constitute and
change social entities by shaping institutions, actors, subjectivities, normative orders and
cognitive maps in a comprehensive fashion. We argue that a comprehensive assessment of
the future of the Arctic needs to take patterns of Arctic governmentality into account, that
is, patterns which constitute and regulate the Arctic as a social and political space.
In the following, we present what is primarily a conceptual argument for the added
value of a governmentality perspective on the Arctic. Having said this, we will apply
governmentality as a theoretical lens to current Arctic affairs and policies. While our
approach contains many empirical references drawn from the existing literature on the
Arctic, is not the result of systematic empirical research conducted for the purposes of
our argument. Thus, we also see this argument as a proposal that can assist in guiding
future empirical research. The contribution will proceed in three main steps. First, we
will briefly survey the current situation in, and the discussions about, the Arctic. Second,
we will introduce some conceptual aspects of governmentality, of the regional focus
applied, as well as of the role of perceptions and representations for governmentality.
Third, and drawing on the concepts developed in the previous part, we will argue that the
construction and representation of the Arctic takes place through a number of intertwined
discourses and related practices and that these, taken together, constitute the governmen-
tality of a unique international region.
The current situation in the Arctic
There is no ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ current state of affairs with regard to the Arctic. Quite to
the contrary, over the last decade, it has almost become a showcase of how quickly whole-
sale discursive constructions of a region can change.3 The common denominator regarding
change in the Arctic pertains to the decrease in the extent of year-on-year sea ice in the
Arctic Ocean as well as the decrease in the mass of inland ice in Greenland. There is no
doubt that the question nowadays is not whether, but only when the Arctic Ocean will be
practically ice free over the summer.4 The region has witnessed an exponential increase in
global attention since the early/mid 2000s and this is probably because nowhere else has
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