Rescaling Cooperation: The Arctic Council and the North American Chairmanship

Heather Nicol | BIG Research Reports | #71

The Arctic Council has evolved from a small organization of eight Arctic states whose main focus was implementing the Arctic environmental protection strategy in the early post-Cold war era,to a modern circumpolar intergovernmental forum. Its successes in environmental protection and the new and looming threat of climate change, have led to increased interest in this organization. A new diversity of interests and actors has pushed the Arctic Council agenda towards consideration of both economic development and environmental sustainability. Under the US Chairmanship however the specificity of American regional federal state and non-state relationships has shaped the agenda in a particular way leading to the more general reflections on economic development in favor of projects and agendas in support of climate change science, environmental protection and applied science. The question is raised as to how economic development will proceed if it is not supported or directly embedded in Arctic Council agendas and programs.

Heather Nicol