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"The ongoing transformations in the Arctic are deeply intertwined with regional and global processes, both in the sense of the Arctic affecting and being affected by these processes that reach beyond the Arctic's southern borders. This article illustrates a number of such interdependencies, focusing especially on the international determining factors of Arctic energy developments, and thus shedding light on the Arctic in a global energy picture. Such determining factors include international market developments, competition with conventional and unconventional resources elsewhere, and the role and bargaining power of international energy companies." (author's abstract)

Neorealist and neoliberal institutionalist explanations for the state and future of the Arctic region dominate the Arctic debate in international relations. While both schools focus on different aspects concerning the current and future state of Arctic affairs – neorealism evokes a confrontational rush for the Arctic's resources, whereas neoliberal institutionalism propagates the necessary reform of the institutional system governing Arctic issues – both share the underlying assumption of significant and rising stakes towards Arctic commodities. However, this article argues that this debate has hitherto failed to substantiate the actual stakes of the main actors involved. Consequently, many studies make grandiloquent statements about prospects of cooperation and conflict and the appropriate institutional framework for the Arctic region, based on only limited empirical support. This article aims to fill this gap by analysing the Arctic oil and gas interests of the five Arctic littoral states (Russia, USA, Canada, Norway and Denmark/Greenland). The analysis shows greatly different levels of interests towards the High North among the Arctic states. The findings make it possible to make more credible statements about the likelihood of confrontation over Arctic resources and necessary institutional adjustments. The evidence shows that the often-evoked issue of geopolitical rush for Arctic resources is unlikely to eventuate. Nonetheless, there remain institutional challenges for the protection of the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

Abbreviations Map of the Arctic 1\. Introduction 1.1 Setting the Stage: The Arctic 1.2 Focus and Contribution of this Paper 2\. The European Union and the Arctic 2.1 EU Official Documents on the Arctic 3\. The Arctic Governance System 4\. The Arctic Players 4.1 United States of America 4.2 Canada 4.3 Russia 4.4 Norway 4.5 Denmark 4.6 Finland, Sweden, Iceland 4.7 Others 5\. The EU in the Arctic Game: Challenges and Possibilities Appendix Bibliography ; The Arctic region was long perceived as a sparsely populated and remote periphery of little relevance to mainstream issues where human activities were regarded as sui generis. But more recently the region has come to the attention of politicians and scholars alike as it is assumed to bear considerable economic and political potential in the decades to come, including great possibilities and numerous challenges. Most striking is the growing importance of energy in the Arctic region as the area becomes more accessible for the exploitation of Arctic hydrocarbon resources but also new shipping and fishing opportunities emerge. The growing interest in the High North is not limited to the countries possessing territory in the area. Rather numerous actors on the international scene including states and private actors show increasingly keen interests in the High North. Alone for this reason, many argue that the European Union has to increase its policy efforts in the region, preferably through a common approach of its member states in order to exert the most influence possible in a multilateral approach in cooperation with other important actors. Against this background the idea of this paper is to give a thorough analysis of the position of the major actors concerning the challenges and possibilities in the Arctic region. Special attention will be paid to the European Union as an Arctic actor. More specifically, it will be analysed how the EU's role as a newcomer to the Arctic 'game' looks like, how it positions itself within the existing actor and governance framework ...

This volume explores the governance of the transforming Arctic from an international perspective. Leading and emerging scholars in Arctic research investigate the international causes and consequences of contemporary Arctic developments, and assess how both state and non-state actors respond to crucial problems for the global community. Long treated as a remote and isolated region, climate change and economic prospects have put the Arctic at the forefront of political agendas from the local to the global level, and this book tackles the variety of involved actors, institutional politics, relevant policy issues, as well as political imaginaries related to a globalizing Arctic. It covers new institutional forms of various stakeholder engagement on multiple levels, governance strategies to combat climate change that affect the Arctic region sooner and more strongly than other regions, the pros and cons of Arctic resource development for the region and beyond, and local and trans-boundary pollution concerns. Given the growing relevance of the Arctic to international environmental, energy and security politics, the volume helps to explain how the region is governed in times of global nexuses, multi-level politics and multi-stakeholderism.--

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Polar Geography on 26 March 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1088937X.2018.1455755 . ; Puzzled by how geographical changes in the Arctic might cause changes in state behavior the authors of this article have been inspired to return to the roots of geopolitical reasoning. By combining insights from the intellectual roots of the geopolitical tradition with empirical data on geographical changes as well as policy changes in the Arctic today, we investigate the degree to which geopolitics, in the sense of geography influencing politics, is still a useful approach in the discipline of International Relations (IR). In limiting our primary focus to the state level, and investigating the period since the turn of the millennium, this article seeks to develop new knowledge concerning if, how, and to what extent geography matters in international politics. Our empirical investigation indicates that geographical changes in the Arctic have indeed had an effect on power relations among several states. Overall, this article shows that geography is an important factor in IR in the sense of enabling or empowering state actors. However, while it appears that physical geography is a possible factor in the cases analyzed to explain changes in identified power potentials, it does not always account for these changes on its own. Economic, political, legal, and historical factors also play a role in the observed power shifts.

The European Union (EU) is increasingly depicted as an actor with a growing interest towards the Arctic region. In order to shed light on the various possibilities for the EU's involvement in Arctic affairs, this article aims to have a close look at potential EU 'gateways' to the Arctic, subdivided into geographical-institutional and policy links, and their logical interaction. The former aspect looks at the historical, institutional, and legal links between the EU and the three Arctic actors Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. The latter examines concrete steps of cooperation between the EU and these countries in selected, Arctic-relevant policy areas. These include the challenges of environmental protection in general and climate change and sustainable development in particular, and the possibilities of benefitting from newly available Arctic resources such as oil and gas, shipping routes and fishing grounds.