23-01-2017
The Institutional Dynamics of the
Arctic Environmental Regime:
A Case Study of Exogenous and
Endogenous Alignment
Author: Jasper Donkers (5884748) Pages: 89 / Words: 21.748
Universiteit van Amsterdam / University of Amsterdam (UvA) MSc Thesis - Political Science: International Relations
Global Environmental Politics and Governance in Theory and Practice Reader1: Dr. R. Pistorius
2 Table of Contents
Abstract 3
Acknowledgement 4
List of tables and figures 5 Chapter 1. Introduction 13 Chapter 2. Methodological Approach 17
2.1 Units of Analysis 18
2.2 Case Selection 19
2.3 Literature and Data 20
2.4 Methods 21
2.5 Validity and Reliability or Scientific Rigor 22
2.6 Relevance and Contribution 24
Chapter 3. Theoretical Framework 26
3.1 International Regime Theory 26
3.2 Institutional Dynamics 29
Chapter 4. The Changing Ecological and Geopolitical Landscape of the Arctic 34
4.1 The Arctic Region 34
4.2 Climate Change and the Arctic Sea Ice Decline 36
4.3 Emerging Geopolitical Processes 38
4.3.1 Accessibility of Natural Resource Development 39 4.3.2 Accessibility of the Transpolar Shipping Routes: 41
The Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage
4.4 Chapter Conclusion 43
Chapter 5. The Arctic Environmental Regime 44
5.1 The Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) 45
and the Arctic Council
5.2 The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 49
5.3 Chapter Conclusion 50
Chapter 6. The Institutional Dynamics of the Arctic Environmental Regime 52
6.1 Exogenous Factors 53
6.2 Endogenous Factors 60
6.3 Exogenous-Endogenous Alignment 63
6.4 Classification of the Patterns of Institutional Change 69
6.5 Robustness, Resilience and Exogenous Stress 72
Chapter 7. Reflection on Theory and Methods 76
7.1 On the ‘Pervasiveness’ of Change 76
7.2 Theory or Method? 77
7.3 Possible Avenues for Further Development 79
Chapter 8. Conclusion 81 Bibliography & References 85
3 Abstract
The geopolitical landscape of the Arctic region is changing rapidly and has moved to the forefront of the foreign policy agenda of the ‘Arctic Five’ - Norway, Russia, Denmark, Canada and the United States. Nowhere are the results of climate change as severe as in this region; the Arctic sea ice is declining at a rapid pace and the Arctic Ocean is becoming readily
accessible for the political actors in the region. As a result of this environmental tragedy, new opportunities for resource development and faster commercial transportation from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Northwest Passage (NWP), are emerging as significant geopolitical processes.
This study describes the interplay between exogenous and endogenous factors that contribute to the shaping of the Arctic environmental regime complex, specifically the emerging geopolitical processes in the region and the locus of its institutions on the soft-law hard-law continuum. These factors are studied by looking at their alignment in subsequent stages of regime development. This method, developed by Oran Young, perceives change as a ‘pervasive’ feature, and conceptualizes why and how change may occur in the Arctic environmental regime complex. It also allows for the comparison with ideal typical classifications of emergent patterns of change and several independent variables – robustness, resilience, and stress – commonly associated with complex system studies.
In my description of the ‘institutional dynamics’ of the Arctic environmental regime I find that it is characterized by behaviour of ‘sovereign competition’ fuelled by the newfound opportunities on the part of the Arctic coastal states. This type of behaviour is aimed at securing their territorial interests with regard to the shipping routes and uninterfered exploitation of natural resources and is at least partly determined by the multipolar nature of the international system and the lack of political integration in the region. It is most significantly demonstrated by the appropriation of the internal attributes of the Arctic institutions by the Arctic Five. Through this type of behaviour, the possibility of an integrated Arctic treaty is countered.
4 Acknowledgements
This is for my mother and my sister – who stuck with me, even at my lowest point. Dad would be proud of us and what we’ve overcome together.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Robin Pistorius for helping me set academic boundaries during a period of recovery, and for giving me sufficient space and support during the course of this research project.
5 List of tables and figures
Figure 1. Boundaries of the Arctic Council Working Groups Source: GRID-Arendal (http://www.grida.no)
Description: The Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program (AMAP), which predates the Arctic Council, created its ‘AMAP area’ as the territory where it would carry out environmental monitoring under the Environmental Protection Strategy. AMAP has defined a regional extent based on a compromise among various definitions. The ‘AMAP area’ essentially includes the terrestrial and marine areas north of the Arctic Circle (66°32’N), and north of 62°N in Asia and 60°N in North America, modified to include the marine areas north of the Aleutian chain, Hudson Bay, and parts of the North Atlantic Ocean including the Labrador Sea, excluding the Baltic Sea.
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Figure 2. Sea Ice Concentration in the Arctic from 1979 to 2000
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado Description: These images using satellite-derived sea ice concentration data show average minimum and maximum sea ice during March and September for the Arctic and Antarctic from 1979 to 2000. Seasons are opposite between the Southern and Northern Hemispheres; the South reaches its summer minimum in February, while the North reaches its summer minimum in September. (March is shown for both hemispheres for consistency.) The black circles in the centre of the Northern Hemisphere images are areas lacking data due to limitations in satellite coverage at the North Pole.
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Figure 3. Undiscovered Oil in the Arctic Region (Regional Overview)
Source: Gautier, Donald et al. "Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the Arctic."
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Figure 4. Undiscovered Oil in the Arctic Region (Table Per Area)
Source: Gautier, Donald et al. "Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the Arctic."
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Figure 5. Undiscovered Gas in the Arctic Region (Regional Overview)
Source: Gautier, Donald et al. "Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the Arctic."
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Figure 6. Undiscovered Gas in the Arctic Region (Table Per Area)
Source: Gautier, Donald et al. "Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the Arctic."
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Figure 7. Arctic Shipping Shortcuts
Source: Borgerson, Scott G. “Arctic Meltdown: The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming”. Foreign Affairs 87.2 (2008): 63-77.
12 Figure 8. Map of the Arctic Shipping Routes
13 1. Introduction
The geopolitical landscape of the area north of the Arctic Circle, known as the Arctic region, is changing rapidly and has moved to the forefront of the foreign policy agenda of the Arctic coastal states - Norway, Russia, Denmark, Canada and the United States (US) - commonly referred to as the ‘Arctic Five’.
Nowhere are the results of climate change as severe as in this region; the Arctic sea ice is declining at a rapid pace (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment 2014; Smith 2010) as the Arctic Ocean is becoming readily accessible for the political actors in the region. As a result of this environmental tragedy, a ‘maelstrom of competing commercial, national security and environmental concerns, with profound implications for the international legal and political system’ (Ebinger and Zambetakis 2009: 1215) is taking place.
This ‘maelstrom’ or these ‘emerging geopolitical processes’, as I will call the political implications of the tragedy in this thesis, are changing the region from a co-operative area to a more competitive area with increased strategic significance, as the Arctic coastal states attempt to extend their territorial jurisdiction and activities in the Arctic Ocean to secure the newfound economic opportunities.
The Arctic region is home to vast reserves of natural resources, with about 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas reserves and 13 of its undiscovered oil reserves, and in the wake of the sea ice decline these resources are becoming accessible. To add to this, the decline will open up economic opportunities for faster commercial transportation from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic through the use of newly accessible Arctic transpolar shipping routes, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Northwest Passage (NWP). The opening up of these routes reduce overall travel distances, transit times and costs of commercial transport in the region and worldwide.
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The end of the Cold War proved to be a new era for co-operation in the Arctic, ultimately leading to the successful adoption of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) in 1991 and the formation of the Arctic Council by the Arctic states in 1996, in which the AEPS and its working groups were subsumed.
In a rapidly changing geopolitical and biophysical system, cooperation and governance through resilient and robust environmental regimes is much needed. Although these initial steps are to be applauded, it remains doubtful whether the region’s primary institution, the Arctic Council, is able to govern the emerging geopolitical processes by itself, as it has not shown significant development towards a decision-making body following its inception. The formal ‘soft law’-framework of the Arctic Council have not been updated to face the new geopolitical issues that will have to be dealt with. As an alternative to the Arctic Council, the Arctic Five instead look to unilateral action and other multilateral agreements, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to secure their strategic position after the Arctic melt.
To gain a theoretical understanding of why and how change occurs in the Arctic regime complex, and may occur in the future, it is not enough to look at the ways regime formation take place, how it performs, or how effective a given regime is, as most regime theoretical approaches do (Haggard and Simmons; Hasenclever 1996). Instead, one has to look at institutional change as a ‘pervasive feature’ of a regime; as something that happens all the time (Young 2010). The vital question one has to ask is then not if change has occured and
why, but to operationalize how a given regime reacts and adapts to changes in the
geopolitical and biophysical context it functions in. Change, in this way, is perceived as a dynamic process that happens within a complex system.
It is due to the direct emphasis on the process of ‘change’ as a ‘pervasive’ feature in the ‘institutional dynamics’-framework (Young 2010) that we can attempt to come to a deeper diagnosis of the change in the Arctic regime. As a theoretical framework Young’s approach
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offers a dialectic approach to analyse the dynamic interplay between ‘exogenous’ and ‘endogenous’ factors, that is to say, of the geopolitical context in which the regime functions and the internal attributes of the institutions present in the regime complex, by looking at their alignment in subsequent stages of development.
The advantage of this approach is that it allows us to identify potential policy gaps as possible avenues for development and that it gives way to the use of a wider and more eclectic range of variables that can be used to study regimes than are traditionally associated with regime analysis. There is no a priori epistemological choice or adherence to a specific paradigm, because the ‘institutional dynamics’ of the environmental regime may include both power-based, interest-based and knowledge-based variables. The theoretical linkage of ‘institutional dynamics’ with studies on the behaviour of complex socio ecological systems also make it possible to apply a number of concepts commonly used in that intellectual current, ‘e.g. robustness, resilience, and stress’ (Young 2010: 3).
To gain a firmer understanding of this case and the possible direction of the institutional dynamics of the Arctic regime given these emerging issues, I have formulated the following research question: How do emerging geopolitical processes in the Arctic region influence the
institutional dynamics of the Arctic environmental regime?
In order to answer this research question I have divided this question into five sub-questions that will structure both the chapters and the methodology of this thesis. The first three sub-questions of my research are empirical descriptions of the external/exogenous characteristics of the geopolitical and ecological landscape (sub-question 1 and 2), and internal/endogenous characteristics of the Arctic environmental regime (sub-question 3).
In answering the last two sub-questions of this thesis I operationalize the empirical discoveries as ‘endogenous’ and ‘exogenous factors’ in their relation to the Arctic environmental regime. By looking at the political antagonisms the ‘exogenous factors’ fuel
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and the mitigating factors of the ‘endogenous factors’ I attempt to show the interplay or ‘institutional dynamics’ that determines the emergent pattern of change of the environmental regime. After this step I will apply a number of concepts commonly used complex system studies: ‘e.g. robustness, resilience, and stress’ (Young 2010: 3).
The sub-questions formulated in this research design are the following:
1. What are the emerging geopolitical processes in the Arctic region?
2. What causes the emergence of new geopolitical processes in the Arctic region?
These second sub-question is asked here explicitly, although we do have an a priori understanding of the cause: climate change. It is included in order to develop a completer picture of the Arctic as a regional system, both in the geopolitical and in the ecological sense, and because its inclusion creates a sense of urgency as well as a stark contrast between the behaviour of the Arctic stakeholders.
3. What does the environmental regime designed to govern the emerging geopolitical processes in the Arctic region consist of?
4. How do exogenous and endogenous factors interact in shaping the Arctic environmental regime?
17 2. Methodological Approach
I have chosen the case study as my methodological approach, due to the nature of the problem that is studied. The research topic of the present study conforms to four points that determine whether a case study should be considered as a research design, according to experts in the field, namely: a) the ‘focus of the study is to answer a ‘how’- question; b) the behaviour of those involved in the study cannot be manipulated; c) contextual conditions are relevant to the phenomenon; and d) the boundaries are not clear between phenomenon and context (Baxter 2008; Yin 2003).
My approach in answering the research questions of thesis will be executed in line with the standards of inductive qualitative research. Whereas a deductive approach would proceed from a broader generalization and then theory-building, to specific testable logical hypotheses, the advantage of an inductive qualitative approach is that it is able to incorporate a larger array of empirical observations and to offer a more detailed description of the complex causal mechanisms underlying them.
This type of approach forms the basis for answering the first three research questions of this thesis: 1. What are the emerging geopolitical processes in the Arctic region?,
2. What causes the emergence of new geopolitical processes in the Arctic region? and 3. What does the Arctic environmental regime designed to govern these processes consist of?
Even though theory does not give narrow directions to the general conclusions made about the Arctic environmental regime, as it would do in a deductive line of reasoning, it does give guidance to the categorization of my empirical observations and the type of interplay between ‘environmental regime’ and the ‘emerging geopolitical processes’ I hope to find. This guidance becomes clear in Chapter 6 of this thesis, where I attempt to answer sub-question 4: How do exogenous and endogenous factors interact in shaping the Arctic
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Although inductive reasoning begins with detailed observations of the subject matter at hand, this does not imply that theory is disregarded when formulating my research question and objectives. Rather, it leaves open the possibility of learning from observation and updating the theoretical insights where necessary.
2.1 Units of Analysis
The main units of analysis of this thesis are, according to their respective levels of abstraction: the international system, the Arctic region, the Arctic environmental regime and the individual Arctic states.
The international system, or the third image as it is commonly referred to by Kenneth Waltz (Waltz 1959), refers to the highest form of abstraction in this thesis and is the system in which all political actors on the lower levels of abstraction interact with each other. I follow the major theoretical approaches of IR theory in this thesis in accepting the premise that this level of analysis is characterized by its ‘anarchic’ state, which is defined as the absence or lack of a central power (Waltz 1959; Wendt 1992).
Although I accept ‘anarchy’ as the underlying logic of the international system, I do not necessarily follow the ontological principle of structural realism that states that the structural composition of the international system determines and compels the behaviour of states to act in a self-interested manner. I will argue instead that ‘power-seeking’ behaviour remains a fundamental characteristic of state behaviour, but that institutions are important factors in mitigating or mediating this type of behaviour through such formal mechanisms or ‘arrangements, such as rights, rules, and decision-making procedures’ (Young 2010: 1).
The Arctic region is the geographical system in which the case study provided in this thesis is located. Geographically, the ‘Arctic’ refers to the northern polar region of the planet and the northest of the five major circles of latitude. The most widely used definition of an
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international region, and the one I will follow in this thesis, is the one used by Joseph Nye, who defines a region as ‘a limited number of states linked by a geographical relationship and by a degree of mutual interdependence’ (Nye 1968). The Arctic region, its empirical delineation and the degree of mutual interdependence will be studied in more detail in paragraph 4.1 of this thesis.
The Arctic environmental regime is the main empirical subject of this thesis and is defined as ‘assemblages of rights, rules, and decision-making procedures that influence the course of human-environment interactions’ (Young 2010: 1). This definition is operationalized in paragraph 3.3 and the definition, as well as its empirical content and delineation, is discussed in more empirical detail in Chapter 5 of this thesis.
The Arctic region consists of the partly ice-covered Arctic Ocean named the Arctic Ocean Basin and its seas, and the bordering territories, including the territory of the eight Arctic states: Canada, Finland, Iceland, Denmark (Greenland), Russia, Sweden and the United States. Not all of the Arctic states are equally significant to understand the institutional dynamics of the geopolitical processes taking place in the region. The more influential Arctic states are the Arctic coastal states: Norway, Russia, Denmark, Canada and the United States. Throughout the course of this thesis they are referred to with the shorthand: ‘Arctic Five’ or as the ‘Arctic coastal states’. As the institution with the lowest level of abstraction used in this case-study, states are significant, if not defining actors, for the explanation on all other levels of analysis; they both influence and are influenced by the different levels of analysis.
2.2 Case Selection
The research design that is used in this thesis is a single case study (n=1) of ‘the Arctic environmental regime’ or in broader sense, ‘the Arctic region’. The most prominent reason for choosing the Arctic region as a topic of study above others is due to the uniqueness of the physical geographical features of the region and the environmental problems that
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threaten it. The environmental tragedy of the sea ice decline that will befall the region is unique in its scope and impact on the international system.
What is of chief interest for IR scholars is that both the impact of sea ice decline, as well as its cause - climate change - are by their very nature international phenomena. Although this unicity may have some disadvantages for research, due to the limited generalizability of the environmental regime compared to other regimes and its high abstraction level, it does provides a unique test-case for the limits of institutions that are designed to govern the region, and offers a natural experiment for scholars interested in ‘institutions’.
The Arctic region is also chosen as the topic because of the wide availability of high quality regime-theoretical case studies of the region. The region is a favourite topic for researchers working in the tradition of ‘regime theory’. One of the reasons for this popularity being that, despite the uniqueness of its environment, most of the socio-economic issues of the Arctic are generic, and due to this fact, the region encapsulates a lot of the dynamics that are found in other regions and on a global level (Grant 1994).
2.3 Literature and Data
In this paragraph I shortly discuss the types of literature and data that are used in the present case study. The study of primary and secondary sources will be the primary method used to collect relevant sources in this thesis. The method through which these sources are studied is through a thorough literature review. I have chosen this method, because the subject that is studied covers a broad and wide variety of sometimes overlapping sources and scientific disciplines and as such openness to different types of information is needed. This interdisciplinary nature is reflected in the data used to conduct this research.
To answer the first two sub-questions: 1. What are the emerging geopolitical processes in
the Arctic region? and 2. What causes the emergence of new geopolitical processes in the Arctic region? I will analyse foreign policy documents and industry reports related to
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resource development and projections of shipping routes to identify the geopolitical processes referred to in these sub-questions. To understand these geopolitical problems as they relate to their ‘emerging’ property scientific understanding of the environmental issue-areas is needed as well. This information covers subject issue-areas, such as the sea ice decline and the various feedback mechanisms that cause climate change in the Arctic.
To answer the third sub-question: 3. What does the environmental regime designed to
govern the emerging processes in the Arctic consist of? I will use sources that describe or
reflect critically on the internal functioning of the Arctic regime, such as the original declarations and treaties, as well as other internal working documents, such as memos, reports. I will also use secondary literature, such as assessments of the institutions and policy documents of third parties that deal with the primary institutions in the regime.
The fourth and fifth sub-question together form the application of the theoretical framework used by Young on the topic of the Arctic. This is where the data gathered in answering the first sub-questions is interpreted critically and organized within Young’s theoretical framework in an attempt to define the complex causal mechanism responsible for the ‘institutional dynamics’ of the Arctic regime.
2.4 Methods
In this paragraph I address the way the theoretical framework structures the research question and sub-questions posed and as such determines the lay-out of my research design. The underlying theoretical assumptions of this structure will be addressed and described in more theoretical detail in paragraph 3.3 of this thesis.
The first three sub-questions of my research reflect on the external (sub-question 1 and 2), and internal characteristics of the Arctic environmental regime (sub-question 3). The geopolitical landscape of the region and the emerging geopolitical processes that may influence the region are studied through the answering of sub-questions 1 and 2, whereas
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the legal and institutional attributes of the environmental regime are studied through the answering of sub question 3. These questions are answered in an empirical fashion in chapter 4 and 5.
The empirical observations made in the answers to these first three questions are then synthesized with the ‘institutional dynamics’-framework and conceptualized as ‘exogenous’ (external) and ‘endogenous’ (internal) factors in sub-question 4. This conceptualization sets up a theoretical reflection on the interplay between factors that influence the dynamics of the regime and in doing so highlights the relative importance of the ‘emerging geopolitical processes’ in this dynamic. This analysis is carried out using Young’s ‘exogenous-endogenous alignment thesis’ in chapter 6.
This question also concerns the empirical ‘diagnosis’ or ‘classification’ given on the basis of the empirical evidence uncovered in the first three sub-questions. This classification is given on the basis of an empirical pattern or general movement that is uncovered through research by looking at the overall functioning of the regime since the conception of its institutions, and comparing it with the five ideal types described by Young as, respectively: progressive development; punctuated equilibrium; arrested development; diversion; and collapse.
2.5 Validity, Reliability or Scientific Rigor
The terms ‘validity’ and ‘reliability’ are problematic terms when it comes to their ability to judge the quality of qualitative research. In this paragraph I will discuss the definitions of these criteria shortly and offer an alternative criterion by which to judge the present case study.
In quantitative methods ‘validity’ refers to the extent that an instrument measures what it is designed to measure. There are two broad measures of the ‘validity’ of a study, namely ‘external validity’ and ‘internal validity’ (Roberts et al 2006; 42). ‘External validity’ refers to
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the ability to apply the findings among the sample population of the research in question to another population, or to another situation. ‘Internal validity’ refers to the extent to which causality between the variables used in the research is demonstrated properly. In quantitative methods ‘reliability’ refers to the consistency in which an instrument measures what it is intended to measure. In essence, a research tool should provide the same information if used by different people (inter-rater reliability) and done at different times (test-retest reliability). To test the reliability of a given research it can be measured using statistical procedures or the re-testing of the research.
As any reader can witness from the definitions mentioned above, these criteria for scientific methods prove a difficult fit with qualitative research that study singular entities or events. This difficult fit occurs especially when it comes to case-studies of social units such as states or regions. These problems, that are characteristic of the social sciences, have led many methodology researchers (Davies & Dodd, 2002; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Seale, 1999; Stenbacka, 2001) to argue for new concepts of validity or terms that ‘they consider to be more appropriate terms’ (Golafshani 2003: 602) to act as criteria for quality in qualitative research.
In this research I follow the suggestion of Davies and Dodd (Davies and Dodd 2002) who claim that notions of reliability and validity in qualitative studies can be replaced by an overarching idea of ‘scientific rigor’ that encompasses the general conceptions of ‘detachment, objectivity, replication, reliability, validity, exactitude, measurability, containment, standardization, and rule’ (Davies and Dodd 2002: 280) and applies it to qualitative research.
I attempt to abide by the ‘scientific rigor’ that is expected in qualitative research by making sure that my research is reliable and valid, not necessarily ’in the sense of replicability of time and across contexts’ (Davies and Dodd 2002: 290) but in a sense that is more suited to qualitative research, namely by organizing a reliability ‘based on consistency and care in the
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application of research practices which are reflected in the visibility of research practices, and a reliability in our analysis and conclusions, reflected in an open account that remains mindful of the partiality and limits of our research findings’ (Davies and Dodd 2002: 290).
This chapter as well as the analysis and conclusions of this thesis, in which the methods used are discussed in great detail, are in my opinion, a testament to the ‘visibility of research practices’ and are an attempt to offer an ‘open account of the partiality and limits’ of my findings (Davies and Dodd 2002: 290).
2.6 Relevance and Contribution
The present case study should be perceived as a contribution to the existing literature on Arctic governance in a changing environmental and geopolitical landscape. The spearhead and focal point of this study is the work of Oran R. Young, to whose expertise I can only hope to add. Young’s expert case studies of the Arctic serve as a specific example and reference point for this case study.
I hope to make an empirical contribution to the field by supplying a detailed case-study that provides an empirical update of the Arctic situation. By using the theoretical framework of Young’s 2010 book Institutional Dynamics I further hope to contribute to the regime-theoretical research agenda by applying Young’s ‘exogenous-endogenous alignment’ proposition and testing several independent variables that are more commonly associated with complex system studies, such as robustness, resilience and stress. One of the contributions of this thesis lay in the further description of this interplay, in which a lot of work is yet to be done, as this proposition has remained undertheorized in Young’s effort.
My theoretical contribution here is a humble one; it is to test the potential contribution of Young’s framework for analysing environmental regimes in comparison to the more traditional variables associated with regime theory. By contrasting Young’s framework with the broader tradition I attempt to make a broader judgement on the feasibility of the
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‘institutional dynamics’ for testing regimes in which emerging geopolitical processes significantly influence policy outcomes. These judgments may prove to have new insights for other theoretical endeavours or future case studies of the region.
26 3. Theoretical Framework
In this part of my research design I provide the reader with a theoretical overview of the academic current in IR theory known as ‘international regime theory’ - an overview that is informed by the work of Hasenclever (1996 & 1997), Young (2002) and Haggard and Simmons (1987). This overview is given to give the reader a general grasp of the theoretical developments in ‘regime theory’ and to identify the types of factors that may influence ‘regime change’.
After this elaboration I will locate the theoretical framework that is applied in this thesis, which is the ‘institutional dynamic’-framework developed by Oran R. Young (Young 2010), within the broader tradition of ‘regime theory’ and discuss the type of definition of ‘regime’ used by Oran Young in the 2010 publication in which this framework makes its first appearance.
3.1 International Regime Theory
The regime-analytical research agenda counts as one of the major academic currents in International Relations scholarship in both Europe and North America (Hasenclever 1997: 1; Rittberger 1993a; Haggard 1987). It has had this status for the last thirty years, since academics in the 1970’s and 80’s first began asking analytical questions about the institutions that govern state behaviour in specific international issue-areas (Ruggie 1975; Keohane and Nye 1977; E. Haas 1980; Young 1980; Krasner 1983a).
Although definitions and jargon vary across its various sub-disciplines and schools, with some scholars choosing to return to the traditional language of ‘institutions’ (Milner 1993; 494) or ‘institutionalism’ (Keohane 1995) and others showing a preference in the creation of new terminology, such as ‘policy coordination’ (P. Haas 1992c), ‘governance system’ (Young 1994) or ‘institutional dynamics’ (Young 2010), the substantive questions of regime theory remain the same. The most important of these questions are: a) What accounts for
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cooperation in rule-based settings in international relations? b) How do international regimes affect state behaviour? And c) which factors determine the success, stability and effectiveness of international regimes? (Hasenclever 1996)
In my study of the dynamics of the Arctic environmental regime, which has been one of the favourite case-studies among ‘regime theory’-scholars (Young 1987; Young 1998; Young 2012), these substantive questions will be a constant source of reflection. This is because the question: How do emerging geopolitical processes in the Arctic influence the institutional
dynamics of the Arctic environmental regime? points to a causal linkage between the
behaviour of states when they are faced with new strategic possibilities and the propensity of dynamic change within the Arctic environmental regime. The causal linkage, between state behavior and regimes, is precisely what is studied under the first two substantive questions a) and b) and is a question that strikes at the core of ‘regime theory’. The third question c) will remain somewhat underexposed in this essay, as I am not necessarily interested in questions of ‘regime effectiveness’, ‘performance’ or ‘success’, but are more interested in the propensity of a regime to adapt to changes.
Various different theoretical frameworks have been developed within the domain of ‘regime theory’ that try to shed light on the substantive questions of ‘regime theory’. These theoretical frameworks can be classified according to the explanatory variable they regard as dominant in providing explanations of state-behaviour with regards to institutions; they are, respectively, power-based, interest-based and knowledge-based approaches. These three different approaches reflect three paradigmatic schools of thought within IR scholarship, namely: realists, who focus on the role and balance of power; (neo)liberals. who focus on interests; and cognitivists, who emphasize the dynamics of knowledge, communication and identities. (Hasenclever 1996: 178; Hasenclever 1997: 1).
What separates these three schools, beside their relative emphasize on different explanatory variables, is the degree to which they ascribe influence to international
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institutions in shaping state behaviour. This relative importance of institutions, which we may call the ‘degree of institutionalism’, is dependent on the ‘behaviour models’ (Young 1989a: 209-13) ‘upon which realists, neoliberals and cognitivists tend to base their analyses, i.e. to the assumptions they make about the nature of state actors and their motivations.’ (Hasenclever 1997: 3). This separation is important for our present purposes because it shows that the perception of institutional mechanisms are in no way fixed; they are highly debatable and influenced by the epistemological position of the analyst and the context in which a regime functions.
Power-based approaches, or realist institutionalism, study forms of international cooperation with a focus on the pursuit of relative gains and security concerns among states, that are seen as rational agents within their respective framework. According to the power-based approach, the distribution of power among states and the anarchical structure of the international system as a whole are structural determinants of state behaviour. Because the anarchical structure is a constant within the international system, power-based theories are predominantly static and positivistic in nature. Among the realist theories of institutional behaviour ‘hegemonic stability theory’, with its emphasis on the influence of hegemonic power on institutional formation, is perhaps the most widely known (Haggard 1987: 500).
Interest-based approaches, or (neo)liberal institutionalism, represents the mainstream approach to analysing international institutions and are highly influenced by neoliberal economic theories of institutions that focus on information and transaction costs, hence the title. Their perspective on international cooperation perceives states, similar to realism, as self-interested rational agents. Different from realism however, neoliberals focus on the ability of these actors to overcome collective action problems through cooperation. They emphasize that states are not solely interested in relative gains, but are instead looking for absolute gains. These interests can be maximized through the use of institutions that are able to shape preferences, facilitate states to overcome collective action problems and
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create expectable behaviour. Engaging in behaviour contrary to institutions of which a state has committed itself can cause reputational damage, or shape future negative expectations of state behaviour, which may lead to compliance of states to institutional rules or norms.
Knowledge-based approaches, or cognitivism, were developed as criticism aimed at interest-based approaches. These approaches ask the underlying question with regards to the interests of states, namely: where do interests come from, and how are they perceived by states? The thrust of the cognitivist criticism is an ontological one, as it sheds doubt on the realist and liberal tradition’s ‘conception of states as rational actors whose identities, powers, and fundamental interests are prior to international society and its institutions’ (Hasenclever 1996: 206) Instead, they argue, that preferences are not given and are influenced by ideas and norms or ‘ideology, the values of actors, the beliefs they hold about the interdependence of issues, and the knowledge available to them’ (Haggard 1987: 510). They thus act ‘complementary to the interest-based theory of regimes’ and ‘fill an important theoretical gap by explaining preference and interest formation’ (Hasenclever 1996; 206). This fundamental criticism coupled with an epistemological critique of the positivist methodology used by realism and liberalism, are distinctive of the knowledge-based approach.
Two strands can be identified within the cognitivist tradition, the ‘weak cognitivists’ that sees itself as complementary research agenda to liberalism and realism and still assumes that states act as rational actors, and ‘strong cognitivism’ that differs from the other approach through its use of a sociological model of behavior. This strand does not perceive states solely as ‘utility-maximizers’, but as agents that play different social roles within the international system.
3.2 Institutional Dynamics
The ‘Institutional dynamics’-framework is a theoretical approach developed by Oran R. Young in his 2010 publication of the same name (Young 2010).
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It is a theoretical attempt to treat ‘international regimes’, which are defined in this framework as ’assemblages of rights, rules, and decision-making procedures that influence the course of human-environment interactions’, as ‘complex and dynamic systems’ in which change is perceived as a ‘pervasive feature’ (Young 2010: 1). This is achieved by offering an exhaustive description and operationalization of the interplay between exogenous factors - the geopolitical landscape the regime functions insofar this is relevant to the regime– and endogenous factors - the functions of the regime itself.
The definition of ‘regime’ used by Young in this framework differs from the ‘consensus’ definition of ‘regimes’ as developed by Krasner (Krasner 1983c) and puts Young squarely in the formalist-camp, of which Keohane’s definition who defines regimes as ‘institutions with explicit rules, agreed upon by governments, that pertain to particular sets of issues in international relations’ (Hasenclever 1996: 12) is the most widely known. This formalist affiliation is however only in terms of the definition used; what divides Young’s approach from Keohane and other formalists is the way he links his definition of a ‘regime’ with a thick description of the causal mechanism underlying the developmental trajectory of the institution studied.
The linkage of this definition of ‘regime’ with its identification as a ‘complex system’ seems a rather radical step at face-value. Whereas a lot of structural applications of regime theory omit system complexity and follow the delineations mentioned in the previous chapter, Young’s approach attempts to integrate theoretical insights from the toolbox used to study complex ecological systems in a regime-analytical approach. In doing so, he develops a framework that allows us to identify emergent patterns of change that develop in environmental governance and structures the search for the complex causal mechanism that has helped shape this pattern.
One of the practical advantages of this line of reasoning is that arguments of both interest-based, power-based and knowledge-based approaches can be used in the conceptualization
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of the independent variables that influence the Arctic regime, thus allowing to offer a more exhaustive description without falling trap to a paradigmatic discussion about the relative importance of one type of variable over the other. The focus is on all factors, understood in a mathematical sense, as the elements that contribute to the institutional change and dynamics that can be observed in a regime.
The basic theoretical crux of my theoretical description of the ‘pervasive change’ in the Arctic environmental regime is informed by a theoretical proposition made by Young in his 2010 book Institutional Dynamics. This theoretical proposition is called ‘the ‘endogenous-exogenous alignment thesis’. Young uses this proposition to empirically identify the factors that influence emergent patterns of regime change and to describe the complex causal mechanism that bind these factors. Literally, this thesis states that ‘patterns of change occurring in individual regimes are determined by interactions between endogenous, or regime-specific, factors and exogenous factors, or forces operative in the biophysical and socioeconomic setting in which regimes are located’ (Young 2010: 14).
Young identifies five emergent patterns among the environmental regimes he studies. They are, respectively: progressive development; punctuated equilibrium; arrested development; diversion; and collapse. The classifications used in Young’s case study will be used in my thesis to draw parallels and describe the type of behaviour witnessed. If necessary, I will formulate a new type of classification, if a significant type of new regime behaviour is observed. In his alignment thesis, ‘endogenous factors’ refer to those factors having to do with the attributes of the regimes themselves and encompass a broad range of considerations such as:
the locus of the regime on a hard law-soft law continuum; the nature of the relevant decision-rule(s); provisions for monitoring, reporting and verification; funding mechanisms; procedures for amending a regime’s assemblage of rights, rules, and decision-making procedures; and so forth (Young 2010: 14)
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Whereas, exogenous factors refer to external realities relevant to the regime under study, such as:
conditions pertaining to the character of the overarching political setting; the nature of the prevailing economic system; the rise of new actors, technological innovations, and the emergence of altered or entirely new discourses; as well as significant changes in broader biophysical systems. (Young 2010: 14)
The empirical observations and classification of the ‘institutional dynamics’ of the Arctic regime will be conceptualized as ‘exogenous’ (external) and ‘endogenous’ (internal) factors in answering sub-question 5, which is formulated as: How have exogenous and endogenous
factors interacted in shaping the Arctic environmental regime?
For an overview of the types of factors used by Young in his 2010 work ‘Institutional Dynamics’, see the table below. (Young 2010: 15)
Table 1: Determinants of Patterns of Regime Change
Endogenous factors Exogenous factors
Locus on the hard-law - soft-law continuum Attributes of the problem Decision rules Political (dis)continuity Flexibility in the face of changing circumstances Technological innovations
Monitoring, reporting and verification procedures Emergence of new actors in the issue area Administrative capacity Shifting paradigms or discourses
Resources/funding mechanisms State changes in the biophysical context Amendment procedures Exogenous shocks (e.g., the ozone hole)
The theoretical linkage of ‘institutional dynamics’ with studies on the behaviour of complex socio ecological systems also make it possible to apply a number of concepts commonly used in that intellectual current, ‘e.g. robustness, resilience, or stress (Young 2010: 3).
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Robustness in this quote from Young, refers to ‘the capacity of a system to cope effectively
with challenges and stresses without undergoing significant changes in its own elements or procedures’ (Young 2010: 4; Gunderson and Holing 2002; Walker and Salt 2006). In contrast: ‘Resilience’ refers to the ‘capacity of a system to experience disturbance and still maintain its ongoing functions and controls. These two elements are often grouped together through the closely linked concept of vulnerability, which rises when stresses ‘begin to overwhelm a system’s robustness (i.e. its capacity to handle stress without adapting) and challenge its resilience (i.e. its capacity to deal with stress through adaption)’ (Young 2010: 6). Stress can thus be best described as ‘any force or process that increases vulnerability or degrades the robustness or resilience of a given system’ (Young 2010: 6)
Through the use of these concepts we can assess the intrinsic qualities of a given regime, without resorting to discussions on ‘effectiveness’ and ‘performance’ that were prominent during the 1990s ‘when prominent critics cast doubt on the causal significance of *..+ social institutions’ (Young 2010: 2). One of the significant advantages of this approach is that these variables allows us to test an institution’s potential to adapt to future shocks by looking at its adaptability in the past, current and future situations. This possibility is somewhat lacking when we only look at the ‘success, ‘effectiveness’ or ‘performance’ of the Arctic regime as it offers a more statist answer.
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4. The Changing Ecological and Geopolitical Landscape of the Arctic
This chapter attempts to answer the first two sub-questions of this thesis, which are, respectively: 1. What are the emerging geopolitical processes in the Arctic region? and
2. What causes the emergence of new geopolitical processes in the Arctic region? Together,
the answers to these sub-questions form the ‘exogenous factors’ of the Arctic environmental regime and will be operationalized as such in a later stadium in Chapter 6 of this thesis for analysis.
The answers to these questions are discussed in the following order: first, I will offer a short geographical and ecological description of the Arctic region insofar this is relevant to the background-knowledge of the reader; second, I discuss the environmental changes that are affecting the region and are the cause of the ‘emergence’ of new geopolitical processes; third, I discuss the primary geopolitical challenges that are emerging as a result of these environmental change.
4.1 The Arctic Region
The Arctic region is the northern polar region of the planet and the northest of the five major circles of latitude. The term ‘region’ refers here to ‘a limited number of states linked by a geographical relationship and by a degree of mutual interdependence’ (Nye 1968). The Arctic region consists of the partly ice-covered Arctic Ocean Basin and its seas, and the bordering territories, including the territory of the eight Arctic states: Canada, Finland, Iceland, Denmark (Greenland), Russia, Sweden and the United States. Unique to the Arctic region, in comparison to other regions, is that it is a ‘region of peripheries’ (Young 2005) as only Iceland lies completely within the region.
There are several ways to describe the geographical extent of the bordering territories of the ‘Arctic region’. The most relevant empirical delineation of the ‘Arctic’ for our present purposes being the one used by policymakers and researchers working for the Arctic
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Council’s working group ‘The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). These policymakers and researchers refer to the ‘AMAP area’ in their reference to the Arctic. This definition identifies the Arctic as an area that ‘essentially includes the terrestrial and marine areas north of the Arctic Circle (66°32’N), and north of 62°N in Asia and 60°N in North America, modified to include the marine areas north of the Aleutian chain, Hudson Bay, and parts of the North Atlantic Ocean including the Labrador Sea, excluding the Baltic Sea.’ In this thesis I will use this geographical delineation in reference to the Arctic.
The ‘AMAP’ delineation of the Arctic region is shown graphically in figure 1 on pg. 5.
The Arctic is perhaps most known for its geographical and ecological features. With a size and shape similar to the Antarctic continent the Arctic Ocean Basin is roughly 1.5 times the size of continental US. It is however starkly different from its polar opposite due to the fact that the Arctic Ocean, which is the main geographical unit in the region, is basically a frozen ocean covered by pack ice or frozen seawater, whereas the Antarctic is a continent with its own land mass.
The Arctic is an ocean covered by pack ice. This means that the ice can drift around the polar basin under the influence of currents, temperatures and winds. When the massive ice blocks underlying the seafloor of the Arctic collide, these ice blocks create pressure ridges. The Arctic Ocean is subdivided by three of these great ridges between Greenland and Siberia.
The sea ice that is found in the Arctic differs from the ice found in the Antarctic, because of the different geography of the two regions. Because the Arctic is an enclosed ocean that is almost completely surrounded by the land of the eight Arctic states, the ice tends to stay in the cold Arctic water and ‘floes are more prone to converge’ and ‘these converging floes make Arctic ice thicker’ (National Snow & Ice Data Center).
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The longer life-cycle of Arctic sea ice leads to the fact that some of the Arctic sea ice remains through the summer. Of the 15 million km² of sea ice during the winter, on average, 7 million km² remains at the end of the summer melt season (National Snow & Ice Data Center).
In the following paragraph I discuss the Arctic sea ice and its development under the stress of climate change in more detail. To look at the Arctic sea ice in geographical detail, as well as its changing dimensions during the season, the reader can consult figure 2 on pg. ??.
4.2 Climate Change and the Arctic Sea Ice Decline
The most significant long-term environmental threat that is facing the Earth - human induced climate change - is perhaps most acutely felt in the Arctic. There is in fact a growing consensus among modern climate scientists that the Arctic polar regions is one of the most vulnerable regions to the temperature change associated with climate change (IPCC Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability 2001; Arctic Climate Impact Assessment 2014; Smith 2010).
Under the auspices of the Arctic Council, two of its working groups, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) and the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), were charged to assess the latest and best information about the impact of climate change and ultraviolet (UV) radiation on the region. The scientific results of their efforts were published in the comprehensive Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Impact (AICA) report in 2004. This report found, in accord with previous studies, that, together with Antarctic Peninsula, the Arctic has ‘experienced the greatest regional warming on earth in recent decades, due largely to various feedback processes’ (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment 2014: 3).
The primary ‘feedback process’ responsible for the fact that climate change is more severe in the Arctic has been identified as ‘the reduction in or loss of snow and ice has the effect of
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increasing the warming trend as reflective snow and ice surfaces are replaced by darker land and water surfaces that absorb’ (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment 2014: 3). These mechanisms are called the ‘ice-albedo’ and ‘snow-albedo’ feedback effects (Cosimo et al. 2007) and create what is known the ‘ice-albedo feedback loop’ (Borgerson 2008: 65) because the open waters are both the cause and consequence of the vicious melting cycle in the Arctic. The other feedback process at play in the region is the ‘sharper angle at which the sun’s solar rays strike the polar region during summer’ (Borgerson 2008: 65).
Average annual temperatures in the Arctic have risen by about 2 to 3℃ since the 1950s and winter temperatures have risen by about 4℃ and it has been projected that that there will be a continuation of this strong warming trend the coming decades, with the ‘largest changes coming during winter months’ (IPCC 2001). The models used by the IPCC - the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change - and the AICA ‘project an additional warming in the annual mean air temperature of approximately 1°C by 2020, 2 to 3 °C by 2050, and 4 to 5°C by 2080’ (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment 2014: 3).
The most important ecological consequence of climate change in the Arctic is the decline of floating sea ice on the Arctic Ocean due to the rise in temperature. Climate scientists have proven that sea ice decline in the Arctic is progressive, as ‘five-year averages from 1980 through 2004 show a general decrease in the Northern Hemisphere sea ice extents and areas throughout the seasonal cycle, with this pattern being especially strong in the late summer/early fall’ (Cosimo et al. 2007: 1). They also found that warming Arctic temperatures ‘provide a powerful forcing toward lessened sea ice covering’ (Cosimo et al. 2007:3) of which external forces that are human-induced are responsible for 33 to 38% in total and 47 to 57% in the recent period of 1979 till 2006 (Stroeve et al. 2007: 5).
As we witness the Arctic sea ice decline over the years, it is only logical that we ask ourselves the fundamental question: if and when will the Arctic sea ice vanish?
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Several projections of the sea ice decline have been made by climate scientists using different models showing different time-horizons for a ‘nearly sea ice free Arctic’ (Overland and Wang 2013: 2097) during the summer period. What these modelled projections have in common is that they all predict ‘an eventual sea ice-free Arctic based on increases in greenhouse gas forcing’ (Overland and Wang 2013: 2100).
The median projections of these modellers centre around the year 2060, but these lack the recent, larger observed rate of sea ice loss and the track-record of conservative modelling on the part of climate scientists. This is why the models projecting near removal of sea ice as early as 2040 are now accepted as more realistic models (Overland and Wang 2013). To quote the prominent Arctic researchers Overland and Wang: ‘It is reasonable to conclude that Arctic sea ice loss is very likely to occur in the first rather than the second half of the 21st century, with a possibility of loss within a decade or two’.
4.3 Emerging Geopolitical Processes
The impact of the Arctic sea ice decline is expected to greatly influence the region’s dynamics as new economic opportunities and geopolitical challenges arise that need to be met by the region’s stakeholders. As Ebinger and Zambetakis argue, the environmental tragedy that will befall the Arctic will ignite a ‘maelstrom of competing commercial, national security and environmental concerns, with profound implications for the international legal and political system’ (Ebinger & Zambetakis 2009: 1215).
In this paragraph I discuss the implications of the Arctic sea ice decline that will occur in the 21st century on the Arctic on ‘competing commercial concerns’ (Ebinger & Zambetakis 2009: 1215). In this part of the thesis I highlight the two primary economic opportunities that can be identified; they will be discussed in terms of their geopolitical significance when they are operationalized as ‘exogenous factors’ later on.
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They emerging geopolitical processes identified are, respectively, a) the newly gained accessibility of natural resources and their potential development following the Arctic sea ice decline (discussed in 4.4.1); and b) the opening up of the transpolar shipping routes, the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route (discussed in 4.4.2).
4.4.1 Accessibility of Natural Resource Development
The effects of the Arctic sea ice decline caused by human induced global warming has given birth to attempts of resource development by the A5 countries, who have made territorial claims for the Arctic coastal areas and their continental shelves.
Currently, the Arctic’s ‘oil and gas fields account for 10.5% of global oil production and 25.5% of global gas production’ (Borgerson 2008: 80). These fields are located primarily in Western Siberia and Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay and mostly consist of onshore areas. By 2007, 400 oil and gas fields, containing more than 40 billion barrels of oil and 1136 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, had been developed. This is however only information available about those fields that have been developed.
The sum total of natural resources located in the Arctic region is not precisely known. Several estimates circulate in the literature based on ‘probabilistic geology-based methodology’ (Gautier 2009: 1175). Rough estimates projected by the US Geological Survey and the Norwegian company StatoilHydro show that the Arctic should hold 30% of the world’s natural gas deposits and about 13% of its remaining undiscovered conventional oil resources (Gautier et al. 2009; Borgerson 2008).
The research shows that these reserves are vastly becoming accessible ‘thanks to retreating sea ice, lengthening summer drilling season, and new exploration technologies’ (Borgerson 2008: 80). Although the deep ocean basins have relatively low recourse potential, most of the prospective resources of the Arctic are located under less than 500 meters water within the continental shelves of the Arctic coastal states (Gautier et al. 2009).
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The brunt of these newly accessible reserves are said to be part of the territory Russia claims jurisdiction over. Calculations made by the Russian Ministry of Natural resources show that the Russian Arctic could contain as much as 586 billion barrels of oil in total, of which a significant number offshore. Although this number is significantly higher than the approximately 412 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable conventional oil calculated by the United States Geological Survey near the continental shelves, one thing is certain: the impact of the oil riches in the Arctic will be immense; by comparison, Saudi Arabia’s current proven oil reserves amount to 260 billion barrels. The riches of Russia’s main economic and political rival in the Arctic, the United States, are minor in comparison to the projected resources of Russia, with a prospect volume of about 27 billion barrels of oil of the Alaskan Arctic coast (Borgerson 2008).
Next to these undiscovered oil reserves, 113 trillion cubic feet of gas is already under development in the fields of the Barent Sea by the state-owned company Gazprom. This is however a fraction of the total amount of cubic feet of gas present in the region. The projections of the United States Geological Survey show that ‘two-thirds of the undiscovered gas’ is to be found in the ‘South Kara Sea (607 TCF), South Barents Basin (184 TCF), North Barents Basin (117 TCF), and the Alaska Platform (122 TCF)’. This shows that although substantial amounts of gas may be found in Alaska, with 122 trillion cubic feet, ‘that the undiscovered gas resource is concentrated in Russian territory, and that its development would reinforce the preeminent strategic resource position of that country’ (Gautier et al. 2009: 1178).
To show the exact amounts of estimated undiscovered oil and gas resources and their exact locations relative to the territory of the Arctic coastal states, the reader can consult figure 3 and 4 on pg. 7 and 8 for the undiscovered oil resources, and figure 5 and 6 on pg. 9 and 10 for the undiscovered gas resources.
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4.4.2 Accessibility of the Transpolar Shipping Routes: The Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage
An even greater prize in the long-term for the Arctic states, made possible by the declining sea ice, is the opening up of the transpolar shipping routes of the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage. Although for now these shipping routes are mostly used for regional resource development, any newly accessible transport connection between Asia and Europe with cost-advantages like these two routes is bound to have a major geopolitical impact when the sea ice fully recedes in the summer. The scenario that awaits the Arctic is of as great significance, if not greater significance, for global trade as the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 (Melia et al. 2016: Borgerson 2008).
This opening up is projected to provide shortcuts for commercial seafaring, with the Northern Sea route reducing ‘the sailing distance between Rotterdam and Yokohama from 11,200 nautical miles—via the current route, through the Suez Canal—to only 6,500 nautical miles, a savings of more than 40 percent’ (Borgerson 2008: 69). Likewise, the Northwest Passage reduces the length of a ‘voyage from Seattle to Rotterdam by 2,000 nautical miles, making it nearly 25 percent shorter than the current route, via the Panama Canal’ (Borgerson 2008: 68).
Despite the roughness of the Arctic terrain, modelled projections show that transit costs for the Northern Sea Route alone may be lower than 15% by the end of the 21st century in comparison with the transit costs for transportation through the Suez Canal (Khon et al. 2009). This means that the scenario that awaits the Arctic is of as great significance, if not greater significance, for global trade as the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 (Melia et al. 2016: Borgerson 2008). Taking into account canal fees, fuel costs, and other variables that determine freight rates, the two shipping routes together ‘could cut the cost of a single voyage by a large container ship by as much as 20 percent—from approximately $17.5
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million to $14 million—saving the shipping industry billions of dollars a year’ (Borgerson 2008: 68).
For large ships, who currently take the route of Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn because they do not fit through the Suez and Panama Canals, the advantage is even greater. Furthermore, the route allows for a safer and more predictable travel as routes through the politically unstable Middle Eastern Waters and South China Sea.
Although the navigation season for the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage will increase in length considerably the coming decades, with a projected free passage from 3 to 6 months for the Northern Sea Route and from 2 to 4 months for the Northwest Passage (Khon et al. 2009), the condition of the sea ice will remain troublesome for transport during the winter and spring months; with the floating sea ice and icebergs are a potential hazard to normal freight ships. To overcome these issues, large scale technological investments are needed in ice-capable fleets ‘such as double-acting tankers, which can steam bow first through open water and then turn around and proceed stern first to smash through ice’ (Borgerson 2008: 71).
Russia and China have been the major investors in these types of technology so far, which has prompted some US foreign policy analysts, government officials and lawmakers to argue that the United State is ‘playing catch-up in the region’1. Perhaps the most prominent example of this lagging behind is revealed by the multi-billion dollars plans of Russia to invest in their own LK-60 icebreakers in the coming years and their agreement on other large scale infrastructure projects to speed up the time horizon through which the transpolar shipping routes become accessible2; the United States currently lack such large scale investment initiatives in the Arctic region.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/world/united-states-russia-arctic-exploration.html 2 http://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry/2016/03/these-are-russias-top-arctic-investments
