The New Middle Way: The Confluence of Petroleum and the Environment in Official Norwegian Discourses on the High North 2004-2006

This thesis explores the confluence of petroleum interests and environmental concerns in official Norwegian discourses in the High North from 2004 to 2006. By retrofitting Marquis Childs’ seminal Middle Way concept for use in the post-Cold War Norwegian context as the New Middle Way, I find that Norwegian officials adopted a pragmatic balance between petroleum and environmental interests to create a discourse that could be tailored to specific actors, creating win-win situations conducive to both cooperation and the advancement of Norwegian interests. In addition, the discourse was employed to both promote the Norwegian oil industry as an “environmentally friendly” alternative globally, while at the same time allowing Norway to retain its role as an environmental norm entrepreneur. The New Middle Way discourse, furthermore, played an important role in Norwegian attempts to prevent its own marginalization surrounded by three powerful geopolitical actors, Russia, the United States, and the European Union. In sum, this thesis finds that while the New Middle Way discourse furthered cooperation, the main aim of the discourse nevertheless remained the promotion of Norwegian economic interests and environmental norm entrepreneurship through a patchwork of bilateral relationships, transnational economic networks, and intergovernmental organizations