Overview of Arctic Policies and Strategies

The scientific report Arctic Policies and Strategies — Analysis, Synthesis and Trends delivers a holistic analysis of the policies, strategies, and declarations of relevant Arctic stakeholders, and new / emerging trends of Arctic governance and geopolitics at the 2020s. The analysis, using quantitative and qualitative methods, is based on a coding of the text of 56 policy documents (in 1996–2019). It considers how different Arctic actors address issues around the following indicators: human dimension, governance, international cooperation, environmental protection, pollution, climate change, security, safety, economy, tourism, infrastructure, and science & education. The study shows that the most-coded quotes of Arctic States’ policy documents relate to Governance, Economy, International Cooperation, Human Dimension, and Environmental Protection included Pollution and Climate Change. Those of Indigenous Peoples Organizations explicitly address issues surrounding Indigenous rights, Governance and ‘Traditional knowledge.’ The most-quoted indicators of Observer states are Science & Education, International Cooperation and Economy. The overall trends of Arctic governance and geopolitics are: i) Ambivalence of Arctic development, incl. ‘political inability,’ whenever a balance is sought between environmental protection and economy; ii) The domination of states within the Arctic territory due to geopolitical stability and sovereignty vis-à-vis globalization; iii) Focus on science for problem-solving due to climate change; iv) Close interrelationship between the Arctic and Space (digital security, meteorology) due to globalization and rapidly advancing climate change in the Arctic