Who Matters in the Arctic? The Rise of Permanent Participants in the Arctic Council and International Affairs

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2021The Arctic Council is a collaborative forum of member states, Permanent Participants, and Observers. It has created many outputs that have attained high levels of global visibility and shaped state agendas. While the Council has evolved since its inception in 1996, the political influence of its Permanent Participant actors is under-explored. How do Permanent Participants, as less resourced Arctic actors, promote their interests and exert influence on the Council’s outputs? The answer affects how we think about the Arctic Council as a producer of meaningful outputs and norms in the Arctic, as well as a vehicle for Indigenous mobilization. I propose that the ability of Permanent Participants to express interests and exert influence within the Council has surpassed many initial representative and theorist expectations. I analyze two cases in which I propose that Permanent Participants have engaged in unexpected strategies to insert their interests in Council outputs: influencing the content of the 2009 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment and the 2013 Observer Manual. Each of these texts was developed within the Arctic Council but went on to impact the broader political landscape of the Arctic, affecting both which forms of knowledge actors recognize and which behaviors external actors must adopt to be welcomed into governance spaces and even establishing the basis of regional socialization. Together, these cases demonstrate unanticipated influence by the Permanent Participants over Arctic Council outputs, shaping the face of the Arctic’s policy and politics, while reflecting a long-trajectory approach to Indigenous internationalization