Abstract
Linked to the image of a wild and still-to-be-explored territory, as well as to images of the region as one of new economic opportunities, discourses on the Arctic also tie in with issues of climate change, cooperation and conflict, Arctic governance, international law and the situation and rights of indigenous people, as well as Great Power politics. Taken together, these aspects characterize a region whose formation is different from regionalization processes in other parts of the world. As the regional peculiarity of the Arctic is reflected by a variety and plurality of representations, discourses, perceptions and imaginaries, it can usefully be analyzed as a region of unfolding governmentality. The present article argues that the prospects for the Arctic are strongly intertwined with perceptions and depictions of it as an international region subject to emerging practices of governmentality. By drawing on both Foucault’s texts and governmentality studies in international relations (IR), we discuss how the Arctic is affected by governmental security rationalities, by specific logics of political economy and order-building, as well as becoming a subject for biopolitical rationalizations and imaginaries. The discourses and practices of governmentality that permeate the Arctic contribute to its spatial, figurative and political reframing and are aimed at making it a governable region that can be addressed by, and accessible for, ordering rationalities and measures.
Introduction 1
From a historical perspective, the Arctic seems to be on a roller-coaster ride in terms of public attention. The extensive media coverage, pathos, and public and official enthusiasm aroused by Arctic and Antarctic exploration in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, notably in the United Kingdom and other countries passionate about exploration, only started to wane with the outbreak of World War I. Although the Arctic played an important role in the military calculus of World War II and in the Cold War, for decades it never received as much attention again as it did in the heroic age of exploration. This situation changed markedly again from the late 1990s onwards. The Arctic had a major comeback in terms of global public attention. Not only did it epitomize the consequences of global climate change. It also – again – served as a point of reference from which grand thought schemes could be projected. Thus, for example, the prospect of ice-free sea lanes along the Northern Sea Route and through the Northwest Passage gave rise to a wealth of predictions about a major shift in the global shipment of goods. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems to be pretty clear that many of these predictions were always more a product of wishful thinking than of serious forecasts, and the general ‘hype’ surrounding the Arctic seems to be receding.
The present contribution argues that the prospects for the Arctic are strongly intertwined with dominant perceptions and depictions of it as an international region, subject to emerging practices of governmentality. 2 Practices of ‘governmentality’ here, as will be further outlined below, are rationalities, technologies and mechanisms that (co-)constitute and change social entities by shaping institutions, actors, subjectivities, normative orders and cognitive maps in a comprehensive fashion. We argue that a comprehensive assessment of the future of the Arctic needs to take patterns of Arctic governmentality into account, that is, patterns which constitute and regulate the Arctic as a social and political space.
In the following, we present what is primarily a conceptual argument for the added value of a governmentality perspective on the Arctic. Having said this, we will apply governmentality as a theoretical lens to current Arctic affairs and policies. While our approach contains many empirical references drawn from the existing literature on the Arctic, is not the result of systematic empirical research conducted for the purposes of our argument. Thus, we also see this argument as a proposal that can assist in guiding future empirical research. The contribution will proceed in three main steps. First, we will briefly survey the current situation in, and the discussions about, the Arctic. Second, we will introduce some conceptual aspects of governmentality, of the regional focus applied, as well as of the role of perceptions and representations for governmentality. Third, and drawing on the concepts developed in the previous part, we will argue that the construction and representation of the Arctic takes place through a number of intertwined discourses and related practices and that these, taken together, constitute the governmentality of a unique international region.
The current situation in the Arctic
There is no ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ current state of affairs with regard to the Arctic. Quite to the contrary, over the last decade, it has almost become a showcase of how quickly wholesale discursive constructions of a region can change. 3 The common denominator regarding change in the Arctic pertains to the decrease in the extent of year-on-year sea ice in the Arctic Ocean as well as the decrease in the mass of inland ice in Greenland. There is no doubt that the question nowadays is not whether, but only when the Arctic Ocean will be practically ice free over the summer. 4 The region has witnessed an exponential increase in global attention since the early/mid 2000s and this is probably because nowhere else has global warming become so immediately visible. While the local impact of global climate change on flora and fauna, as well as on the local communities living on the shorelines of the Arctic Ocean has already been profound and has received increased attention, the major focus regarding the global impact of developments induced by global climate change in the Arctic has been on economic and resulting geopolitical interests.
Economic interests in the Arctic relate to the possibility of accessing vast crude oil and mineral offshore resources that up to now have been beyond the scope of exploration because of the challenges posed by the ice cover and the harsh climatic conditions. In addition, the melting of the sea ice has fostered interests in new Arctic shipping routes. The prospects in this respect have underpinned a long and intensive discussion about the future of the Arctic in the face of both environmental and economic globalization. Emboldened by a range of highly symbolic moves, most notably the planting of a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole in 2007, this prospect of the economic use of the Arctic has supported a vast debate of a coming ‘Cold War’ there, a new ‘scramble for the Arctic’, etc. and has been framed in terms of the prospects for cooperation or conflict in the Arctic region (cf. Brosnan et al., 2011; Nicol and Heininen, 2014; Potts and Schofield, 2008; Young, 2009, 2011).
The discursive hype notwithstanding, however, the Arctic has never been a region prone to manifest territorial conflict. 5 Quite to the contrary, interstate territorial disputes remain very limited. They pertain, most notably, to the exact location of the boundary between the US and Canada in the Beaufort Sea, to the dispute between Canada and Denmark with regard to the tiny Hans Island in the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait, the question of whether the Northwest Passage constitutes an international shipping lane or a domestic shipping route within Canadian waters and unresolved issues in relation to Svalbard’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Arctic Ocean remains subject to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and although there are vast differences between riparian states regarding claims as to the extension of their continental shelves (and associated rights of economic exploitation), thus far all states involved have sought to abide by UNCLOS rules and have submitted their scientific data and claims for a necessary decision on the issue to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). In addition, the Arctic Council has proved to be a fairly effective and efficient body for discussing all matters pertaining to the Arctic (save issues of security), exerting a strong pull for a range of states who have sought observer status. 6
While all the issues briefly addressed thus far continue to play a role and are the subject of discussion and policy planning, it is probably fair to say that over the last few years the Arctic ‘hype’ has somewhat faded away. This is due to a number of developments. First, the main players have now filed claims with regard to the extension of their continental shelf in the Arctic to the CLCS. Any disputes pertaining to this issue are likely to be ‘frozen’ until a CLCS ruling, which may take quite a while. Second, all expectations in relation to the possibilities of Arctic shipping have turned out to be greatly exaggerated. The remaining difficulties with the ice pack on parts of the shipping route, and even more so the lack of port infrastructure, means that the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route will still not be viable for large vessels or for container shipping (let alone post-Panamax container ships). For the foreseeable future, shipping will very likely continue to serve mostly local and regional needs through bulk transport. 7 Third, the exploration of Arctic oil and gas reserves, particularly, has suffered a considerable setback because of the steep drop in oil prices and the shale gas revolution on the one hand and, on the other, the continuing and severe technical difficulties associated with drilling in the Arctic Ocean (most notably reported in relation to Royal Dutch Shell’s faulted – and by now abandoned – attempts in the Beaufort Sea). 8
While a range of issues and predictions of possible conflict in the Arctic might have been emphasized less in more recent discussions, not a single issue has ceased to exist. What we take as a starting point for the discussion of current governmental developments in the region, is, however, not individual issues, but representations, depictions and imaginaries of the Arctic. Neither is the Arctic a region that can be characterized by supposedly ‘neutral’ facts, nor is it amenable to arbitrary social constructions ‘at will’, so to speak. As with other spatial formations that are subject to some form of political authority, the Arctic region can be conceptualized as a specific and evolving conglomerate of a relation between power and knowledge that is expressed through and reproduced by a range of discursive strategies. It is against this background that we believe that the concept of governmentality can help to shed light on the specific constellation of the Arctic power/knowledge nexus that constitutes and shapes the Arctic as an international region.
Governmentality and regionalism
At first glance, it might seem counter-intuitive using the Foucauldian concept of governmentality when discussing the Arctic region. Foucault’s interest was in the practices and strategies of governmentality that were associated with the emergence of the modern state, and in the specific formulations of disciplining power connected to it (Foucault, 2004a, 2004b). For a long time, governmentality studies did not pay much attention to trans- or international relations, but adhered to Foucault’s focus on the governmentalization of and within modern, and in most cases, Western societies (Barry et al., 1996; Burchell et al., 1991; Dean, 1999). While we can already find some first reflections on international governmentality in Dean’s early (and groundbreaking) approach to governmental theory and politics in 1999, the early governmentality discourse concentrated on politics within (mostly liberal) states and societies. Using governmentality in relation to the Arctic, therefore, seems at first glance to be at best a borderline case of governmentality studies, in the sense that past and present attempts to bind the inhabited parts of the Arctic into the framework of modern statehood could be traced. However, this is not the kind of ‘Arctic governmentality’ that we have in mind. While not negating the assertion of territorial statehood, however limited, 9 and, in particular, not denying the ongoing relevance of state interests and state sovereignty patterns, as well as juridical and institutional policies in areas of the ‘High North’, we will take a different approach and look at the Arctic mainly as a subject for, and an object of, inter- and transnational governmentality. Given the abundance of governmentality approaches we will, however, abstain from giving yet another exegetical overview on the theory of governmentality, but will now only briefly sketch, contextualize and justify our perspective. Our more detailed reading of governmentality will then be deployed step by step in the course of the analytical part of this article.
Since our interest is in the specific traits and aspects of governmentality, we deliberately concentrate on that, and do not focus on notions and concepts of sovereignty or governance. 10 For Foucault, the governmental type of power is systematically distinct from – or rather even opposed to – what he calls sovereign power and describes as state-centric, juridical, institution based and repressive – and which he believes to be an anachronistic power mode that is not prevalent in modern politics any more. Although Foucault pointed out that sovereign power techniques might be instrumental for governmentality and put forward the idea that the transition from sovereign to disciplinary, and then to governmental power should be understood as a genealogical passage and not as a sequential replacement of one power type by another, for Foucault this does not put in doubt the systematic and conceptual distinctions between these different forms of power and the corresponding rationalities of politics (1997: 32–34; 2001, 2004a: 17–26, 134–165, 2004b: 427, 435ff.). However, while our present look at the Arctic follows Foucault’s conceptual sketch of governmentality, we do not intend to imply that sovereign or disciplinary rationalities and frames of power (the latter rather on the micro-level of power exertion than on the regional macro-level) have ceased to exist or are irrelevant in the Arctic space. In order to clarify this point further: while we concentrate on rationalities of governmentality, and not on sovereign power modes, we do not mean that sovereign techniques of state actors could not appear alongside or coincide with rationalities and practices of governmentality. 11 Quite on the contrary, it is obvious that some major Arctic actors, Russia, for instance, rely strongly on sovereign approaches and policies towards the Arctic.
A considerable range of adaptations of the governmentality lens exists in international relations (IR) that emphasizes various aspects of Foucault’s late work and addresses a variety of transborder topics. Taking into consideration the relevance of the dispositifs of security for the governmental art of governing (Foucault, 2001), governmentality-oriented approaches to IR have been adopted, first and foremost, in security-related research in a broad sense. This research addresses the governmental framing of inter- and transnational security rationalities and politics as well as governmental securitization dynamics (Bigo, 2008; De Larrinaga and Doucet, 2008; Dillon and Reid, 2009; Evans, 2010; Vasilache, 2014). Related to approaches that focus on security, a considerable number of adaptations of governmentality theory in IR draw in particular on Foucault’s concept of biopolitics in order to discern and analyze biopolitical implications of and within international politics (Aradau and Blanke, 2010; De Larrinaga and Doucet, 2008; Dillon, 2007, 2010; Duffield, 2007). In addition, there is considerable interest in the colonization and shaping of the international by rationalities and techniques of liberal political economy (Duffield, 2007; Jabri, 2006; Kiersey, 2011). Along with research that addresses a variety of empirical issues, the governmentality angle in IR also includes broader, conceptual approaches that discuss tendencies of ‘global governmentality’ (Grondin, 2010; Larner and Walters, 2004) or the governmental rationalities of globalization (Lipschutz and Rowe, 2005).
Critics of using Foucault’s theories broadly with regard to IR argue that governmentality ‘refers to the conduct of conduct, especially the technologies that govern individuals’, and that it ‘captures the way governments and other actors draw on knowledge to make policies that regulate and create subjectivities’ (Bevir, 2010: 423). Therefore, governmentality theory is seen as being applicable to the governing of individuals, mainly in Western states, rather than to IR or even to global politics (Joseph, 2010a, 2010b; Selby, 2007). Related to this criticism, Chandler (2010: 135) argues that governmentality in IR depends on taking for granted the existence of a global liberal order and therefore tends to turn ‘methodology into a dogmatic a priori approach’. While we cannot invest further in this debate, it seems that the criticism of taking governmentality to the global level does not oppose, but much rather suggests, applying a regional governmentality perspective. In conceptual terms, a regional focus does not depend on presupposing a boundless and denationalized liberal global order. In addition, a regional approach allows for taking into account a range of actors on various scales (states, populations, individuals, inter- and transnational organizations, etc.), without methodologically prioritizing or excluding any particular type of actor.
Because of the systematic openness in this regard it seems that, first, the regional view can be expected to be relevant for governmentality studies because it adopts the middle ground and fills the systematic gap between the state-confined and the boundless/global views in governmentality approaches. However, looking at regions from a governmentality perspective is, second, justified also in thematic terms. While regional patterns and dynamics both play a significant role in international politics and have received a lot of scholarly attention since the 1990s (for an overview see Söderbaum, 2015), the governmentality view has barely turned towards regionalism (with a few exceptions, such as Larner and Walters, 2002) or to particular world regions. The increased relevance of regionalism as a focus and regions as areas of political and economic regulation, as well as their liberal framing, not only suggests going beyond mainstream governance approaches to regionalism 12 but, in particular, supports the governmentality focus on regions. In addition, the few regional applications of the governmentality lens usually address the EU (Walters and Haahr, 2005) or, in a very few (if not a single) case(s), the Middle East (Busse and Stetter, 2014; Tagma et al., 2013) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Freistein, 2014). Unlike these political regions, the geographical Arctic region is uninhabited in large parts and only a minor part is covered by territorial states. It is basically subject to maritime law. Third, taking a closer look at the Arctic region, therefore, seems relevant as it might provide insights into the dynamics of a genuinely international region. Fourth, this specific characteristic of the Arctic entails the necessity as well as the possibility of widening the view beyond the conduct of states, institutionalized governance or international organizations, and of taking into account discursive representations of the region. Therefore, we will broaden the empirical perspective and trace facets of governmentality in the Arctic with a focus on representations, depictions, conceptualizations and perceptions, as well as related practices.
To put an emphasis on ideas, discourses and related practices is, however, not only appropriate because of the particular situation of the Arctic region (i.e. on the empirical level), but also in theoretical terms. Such a focus results from the conceptual feature of governmentality as being both a rationality of governing, as well as a perspective for analysis (see, in particular, Dean, 2007; Neumann and Sending, 2010). The inextricable interrelation between governmental rationality and practices corresponds to the core role of discourses in Foucauldian thinking in general (Foucault, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1984) and, in particular, to the importance that Foucault assigns to the study of discourses, perceptions, depictions and representations for the understanding of politics and governmentality (Foucault, 1991b). By drawing on both Foucault’s writings 13 as well as on governmentality studies in IR, we will use governmentality as a heuristic framework and seek to take into account the interrelatedness of the core conceptual aspects of governmentality analysis and politics. In doing so, we will outline and discuss how the Arctic is affected by governmental security rationalities, by specific logics of political economy and order-building and by circuits of liberal economic flows, as well as how it is subjected to biopolitical rationalizations and imaginaries. Asking whether and how the Arctic is subject to discursive governmentalization can, thereby, be a first step towards more critical engagements in subsequent research.
Facets of Arctic governmentality
Approaching the Arctic as a region of governmentality requires acknowledging a wealth of discourses that both represent and ‘make’ the region. Here, we follow both Foucault (1975, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1991b) as well as the vast majority of Foucauldian readings, and treat discourses in the widest possible sense, encompassing mentalities, practices, semantics and representations. On an empirical level this is probably best expressed by the fact that definitions of the regional boundaries vary widely. While obviously a function of the criteria applied (for example, the location of the polar circle, the tree line, the 10°C July isotherm, etc.), it is equally obvious that the application of one criterion or another in most cases follows discursive purposes and related interests. While it is not possible here to enumerate all discourses that feed into the representation and production of the Arctic as a region of governmentality, a number of the most important ones can easily be identified. These include representations of the Arctic as: an open and still-wild space, a site of conquest and struggle; an economic zone, rich in natural resources; a living space for (indigenous) people(s); a site for cooperation and possible conflict between nation-states; and a regulative space. While a detailed analysis of these discourses is far beyond the scope of the present contribution, we observe their existence as a starting point and argue that it is the shape and rationalities of these discourses and imaginaries of the Arctic (cf. Steinberg et al., 2015), their changes and their modifications, that characterize the Arctic region as an international region and as a space in the process of governmentalization.
Shaping a region and making a regional space governable
The discourse on the conquest and exploration of the Arctic as frontier and as an unknown, wild, and challenging space is the oldest one, as it is inimically linked to the early days of polar exploration from the 18th century onwards. For a long time, this discourse was the dominant representation of the Arctic (as well as of Antarctica). While this dominance has long been weakened, it still provides a powerful way of depicting the region. In a direct continuation of historical narratives of exploration, this representation can be found, for instance, in attempts to actualize past heroism and tragedy for present purposes (e.g. Canadian Prime Minister Harper at the bow of one of the vessels that miraculously then found one of the Franklin expedition ships just a few days later). It is expressed more broadly and pervasively, however, in depictions of people, expeditions, ships, etc. that seem to challenge the cold and the wilderness (in the case of people often posing for commemorative snapshots with a rather triumphant expression), in rituals of national conquest (the by now infamous flag-planting on the seabed by a Russian submarine) and in metaphors of extremity (most notably the ‘Far North’).
This broader discourse feeds on the ‘authenticity’ of the struggle and effort expressed in the more traditional one on conquest and exploration. 14 However, in addition to these traditional heroic discourses and practices that reflect sovereign projections rather than governmental imaginaries, we see recent discursive representations that go along with, but also overwrite and question the idea of an open and hostile space conquered by brave individual explorers representing their states. Taken together, these more current approaches to the Arctic contribute to a (re-)definition and constitution of it as a region and a governable space. This takes place along five interrelated discursive, representational and political moves.
First, there is a growing and expanding interest of international institutions and organizations in the Arctic. While international governmentality is not limited to activities of international institutions and organizations, Merlingen (2003) has demonstrated their impact on and importance for transboundary governmental steering. In respect of the Arctic, we see increasing attention from institutions, in the Foucauldian sense of problematization (Foucault, 1996: 178), that can be traced in both the growing number of international organizations dealing with the Arctic, as well as in the increasing relevance of Arctic issues to international organizations. Arctic-related topics have gained relevance beyond the institutional framework of UNCLOS and the Arctic Council, and are addressed in numerous institutional contexts, differentiated along specific thematic concerns (for example, the new Arctic Economic Council). The Arctic has become a topic in a wide range of fora on economic and environmental issues, on tourist development, on issues of agriculture and on indigenous and human rights, etc. In addition, the rising interest in the Arctic from institutions is mirrored in the increasing visibility and political relevance of the Arctic Council itself. Nowadays, the Arctic Council plays an important role both as the core institution for Arctic politics and also as a link to and between other institutions dealing with Arctic issues. 15 This rise in visibility and relevance of the Arctic within international institutions has been accompanied by riparian states reformulating their Arctic policies and strategies, but also by countries far away from the Arctic, such as China and India, developing an interest in the region – and, for example, seeking and gaining observer status in the Arctic Council.
Second, related to the increasing relevance of the Arctic to institutions that we have witnessed during the last few years, there has also been a substantial increase in the number and dedication of actors dealing with the Arctic. 16 This includes international institutions and non-riparian states that were formerly barely involved (and sometimes not even interested) in Arctic policies and politics. However, the increasing number of actors involved in Arctic affairs goes far beyond states and institutions, and includes both a broad variety of different non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as individual actors. Ranging from private companies with obvious economic interests, transnational trade and industry associations, through environmental and climate protection actors, biodiversity actors, indigenous representatives and indigenous rights activists, broadcasters and media organizations, to a multidisciplinary variety of scholars and experts, a broad spectrum of actors have captured the Arctic discursively. They address manifold topics from their respective specialized perspectives and with different political, economic, ecological, cultural or academic interests and goals (see Jensen and Hønneland, 2015 for a recent overview). This multiplicity of actors dealing with Arctic affairs, their specialization and polyphony, the inclusion of Arctic inhabitants as subjects and objects of governmental (self-)observation and (self-)enhancement, as well as the lack of a clear legal political hierarchy in Arctic politics, are characteristic features of governmentality, which is characterized as ‘[t]he ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power’ (Foucault, 1991a: 102; see also 2004a: 416).
Third, the growing number and thematic range of Arctic actors is accompanied by a multiplication of knowledge on the Arctic. While still a marginal and specialized subject compared to mainline subjects in most scientific disciplines, the marginality of the Arctic seems to have been gradually reduced by the growing realization that it is not only a region of natural phenomena, but embedded in global networks and ‘flows of people, money, ideas and influence’ (Dodds and Nuttall, 2016: 37). Fourth, systematic knowledge production is not only both a precondition and technique of governmentality (Foucault, 1991a: 96, 102, 2004a: 114, 118–121, 162–163, 346), but also contributes to the governmental normalization of the Arctic (see Foucault, 2004a: 90–100). 17
Fifth, taken together, the aspects mentioned not only show that several characteristic traits of governmental rationality are being projected on to the Arctic, but add to the definition and constitution of the Arctic as a region. The broad and diversified framework of actors and of knowledge production covering the Arctic, as well as its normalization, contributes to reframing an open and wild area as a concrete and defined space. This is also reflected by a remarkable change in spatial perspectives on the Arctic. While former heroic narratives concentrated either on single geographical spots (North Pole) or particular routes (Northwest Passage), such Pole or Far North representations have been superseded by spatial representations of the Arctic that conceive it as an encompassing region or even as a placeholder for a global ‘New North’ (cf. Smith, 2012). The interest in specific spots within an open, undeveloped area has been overwritten by a comprehensive view that depicts the Arctic as a concrete space and as a particular ‘historical-natural milieu’ (Foucault, 2004a: 42, our translation, see also 40–44). Corresponding to governmental rationalities, the discursive construction of the Arctic as a region is based on an assemblage of actors, knowledge and representations aimed at defining, understanding, assessing and ordering the respective space. It can be seen as an example of ‘how imaginative geographies reflect (and allow) folding of […] discourses as well as biopolitical strategies’ (Prasad and Prasad, 2012: 358).
The particular relevance of discourses and representations for the constitution of the Arctic as a region is underpinned by the fact that questions of territorial and legal belonging of the Arctic to particular states do not constitute the core of Arctic debates. Because of its missing national foundation, the development of the Arctic differs strongly from other regionalization initiatives around the world. Since the Arctic lacks a clear national–territorial basis that characterizes other political regions, such as the EU, ASEAN, Mercosur, etc., it is a genuinely international region that is held together neither by member states alone nor primarily by law, but much more by the mentioned assemblage of discourses, imaginaries, and the entirety of political and societal actors and initiatives addressing the Arctic and its populations. Because there is no primacy of the national and the juridical in Arctic affairs, we see a rather subordinated and instrumental function of the law – which corresponds to governmental rationalities in that ‘the “rule of law” [works] as rule “through” law’ (Rajkovic, 2010: 29; see Foucault, 2004a: 150).
This, again, does not mean to underestimate the relevance of institutional and, thus, juridical aspects of Arctic politics – for example, regarding questions of indigenous rights. And while it needs to be emphasized that governmentality works mostly ‘indirectly’ by shaping the frames in which others make sense of their actions, this does not deny the relevance of more ‘direct’ paths of action – as, for instance, traditional government practices and more sovereign, sometimes repressive techniques – parallel to, alongside and within politics of governmentality (see Dillon, 2004: 76). To use but one example, it has been argued that, in relation to Arctic region-building, some actions taken by the governments involved, most notably the Ilulissat Declaration, were state- and government-centric and deliberately framed to exclude others (see Moe et al., 2011). 18
Knowledge production, normalization and security
As hinted at already, there is a substantial increase in, and specialization with regard to knowledge production on the Arctic, as well as a particularly close relation between scholarly observation and policy advice. 19 According to governmentality theory – but already in accordance with Foucault’s earlier concept of the inseparability of the power/knowledge nexus (Foucault, 1980) – knowledge production is a necessary requirement for the governmentalization of spaces (Foucault, 1991a: 96, 102, 2004a: 114, 118–121, 162–163, 346) and, thus, an important activity field and technique of governmental power. Diverse and specialized expertise does not only open up the possibility for concrete governmental intervention in respective thematic areas. Rather, the expertise-based, systematic detection of risks and aberrations requires the elaboration of scholarly–political problem-solving strategies and intervention through preventive measures (Foucault, 2004a: 53, 57, 2004b: 101).
Likewise, the multidisciplinary scope of Arctic knowledge production and its depth can be read as a contribution to the governmentalization of the Arctic through its normalization. However, it is a type of normalization that, on the one hand, refers to the governmental, i.e. knowledge-based meaning of the term (Foucault, 2004a: 90–100; Bigo, 2008: 99–104; De Larrinaga and Doucet, 2008: 520) while, on the other hand, it includes the colloquial usage of the term in the sense of a trivialization of the Arctic as a mundane, rather unspectacular space. Having said this, we see a normalization of the Arctic space through thematic enlargement and knowledge differentiation alongside disciplinary expertise. This normalization move consists of the discursive transformation of an area of unexpected extremity to a space of predictable order – with predictability being a core target of the governmental security dispositif. Following Foucault, security is an encompassing ordering principle that pervades the politics of governmentality (Foucault, 2001, 2004a: 19, 39–44, 53, 162, 2004b: 101–102) and pervades all aspects of life, aiming at an arrangement and an order of things that minimizes the risk of undesirable or unexpected incidences, as well as of aleatory events. By doing so, it reduces uncertainty (Foucault, 2004a: 52ff., 57). In order to enable the deployment of a governmental regulation of space, its circulation patterns and biopolitical focus, the governmental security dispositif works through preventive risk detection, which is realized through socioengineering techniques of observation and surveillance, as well as cost-benefit-calculations and risk analyses. Reshaping the Arctic from the unexpected to the calculable, therefore, also implies moving away from the logic of threats to a rationality of expertise-based risk assessment as well as resilience rationalities (Castel, 1991; Dean, 1999: 177; Foucault, 2004a: 57, 2004b: 101; Lentzos and Rose, 2008). This is reflected in current discursive representations and projections of the Arctic. Although representations in relation to ‘traditional’ security issues still abound (see Bartsch, 2015 in overview), the Arctic is increasingly seen as a social and inhabited area that needs to be comprehensively managed (cf., for example, Anderson, 2009; Struzik, 2015), in this respect also endowing it with a history that is retold as not being ‘marginal’ (see Grant, 2016). In line with the governmental ideal of establishing and maintaining favourable conditions for the normal course of life and its supposed natural regularities (Foucault, 2004a: 53, 78ff., 346, 501–505), the Arctic experiences governmental securitizing moves 20 that transform it from a place of (possible) death to a place of life, in which future developments become controllable through the knowledge-based prevention of undesirable and/or unforeseeable incidents and sudden breaks in the normal course of events. 21
The governmental triangle of systematic knowledge production, normalization and securitization is also mirrored in the fact that heroic polar exploration has been replaced by scientific missions. In structural equivalence to Foucault’s remark that the universal philosopher has been replaced by the specific technical expert (Foucault, 1980: 126–129), we see the polar adventurer being replaced by the scientist specializing in Arctic studies. Former heroic polar expeditions were about braving the elements and overcoming life-threatening dangers. In contrast to the heroic era, the prototype of contemporary polar explorers is not the group of – more or less crazy – hotshots, but the interdisciplinary team of experts, who apply for a sabbatical to do field research. This corresponds to the almost complete absence of the image of the Arctic as ‘terra nullius’ in such contexts, which serves as a flexible point of reference in other, more traditional ‘heroic’ discourses (see Steinberg et al., 2015: 31ff.). Furthermore, even the depiction of recent more or less ‘heroic’ (or, according to perspective, completely nonsensical) performances of the human body in an Arctic environment, such as running a marathon to the North Pole, differs from the logics of traditional explorations. Such an event is detached from the extraordinary characteristics and the uniqueness of an existential, potentially life-threatening challenge, but rather symbolically as well as metaphorically includes the Arctic space within the regular realm of sportive events – with sports being an activity that particularly fits with the governmental ideal of the biopolitical subject voluntarily enhancing his or her fitness in the sense of a continuous ‘souci de soi’ (Foucault, 1984).
Unleashing economic potential and circulation
Governmentality is both based on, and enables, structures and processes of liberal political economy. Understood as a broad political rationality that frames the entire social order (Foucault, 1991a: 92; 2004a: 142–145, 159), the concept of liberal political economy, on the one hand, goes beyond the economy as a single policy field. On the other hand, however, the economy as a subject matter provides a prototypical area of activity and the guiding rationalities of governmentality (Foucault, 2004a: 144ff.). Liberal economic patterns and policies offer a blueprint for the wider political economy of governmentality.
The discourse on the Arctic as an economic zone is the one that most directly draws on the observation of the regional effects of climate change, most notably the reduction of year-on-year ice in the Arctic Ocean and the receding of land ice in Greenland. It focuses on the expectation of the (not necessarily always confirmed) presence of vast resources of sought-after raw materials in the region. This is related first and foremost to oil and gas (Mikkelsen and Langhelle, 2008) as well as to minerals to be exploited on or below the seabed. Such expectations explain the high interests and stakes invested in the delimitation of the continental shelves of riparian states – which demonstrates that territorial questions, although not central to Arctic debates, are of course not absent or irrelevant. The second thematic field of the economic discourse focuses on the usefulness of shipping routes that might become available as a result of the receding year-on-year ice, most notably the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route (along the north shore of Russia). It is these that have often been infused with projections for a new global role for the Arctic as possible alternatives to the Panama and Suez Canal routes.
In considering recent discourses on the Arctic we not only discern the particular relevance of economic expectations, but also a governmental framing of these economic aspirations in that they are, first, targeted at unleashing the, until now, fallow economic potential of the Arctic – as well as human capacities and individual energies in general – by, second, enabling circulation flows. Current economic discourses and representations not only describe the development of the Arctic in terms of a purposeful establishment or an accurately planned construction of a regional economy. Rather, they are also characterized by the governmental rationality of freeing already existing potentials, unleashing available, but latent forces, which until now were obstructed and – both metaphorically and literally – frozen in perpetual ice (see, for example, Eurasia Group, 2014). In contrast to a foundational or creational logic that is linked to sovereign rationalities (Foucault, 1991a: 95, 102), the governmental approach strives to enable economic deployment according to the (supposed) momentum and inner regularities of economic dynamics. Therefore, economic development is not seen primarily in terms of structures and institutions, but rather projected in patterns of movement, circulation and free trade.
Within governmental rationality, enabling and maintaining circulation plays a crucial role beyond simple economic necessities or technical/logistical requirements. Rather, it can be understood as a non-material pattern that contributes to constituting, ordering and securing a governable space (Aradau and Blanke, 2010). As Dillon puts it, ‘distribution is the spatial figuration that characterizes traditional geopolitical rationalities and technologies of security, circulation is the spatial configuration that characterizes the biopolitics of security’ (Dillon, 2007: 11; see also Bigo, 2008: 107). However, circulation is important not only in terms of biopolitical security, but as a crucial ordering principle for the deployment of liberal political economy and its regulation (Foucault, 2004a: 36ff., 40, 100).
Looking at economic aspirations towards Arctic space, 22 we can actually detect three different, but closely interrelated projections of circulation. First, the exploitation of Arctic raw materials appears as a promise to include Arctic goods into global trade flows (see Glomsrød and Aslaksen, 2008). However, this target is connected to a much broader aspiration. It appears, second, also as a hope for maintaining, furthering and securing global economic circulation through the (speculative) increase in natural gas and crude oil supply from Arctic deposits (cf. Eurasia Group, 2014), creating a new hot spot for gas and oil production in addition to the Gulf region, Russia and Venezuela. Third, new shipping routes (Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route) are supposed to expand the global map of liberal circulation (cf. Humpert, 2014). Thus, governmental circulation projections on to the Arctic are encompassing, since they address the regional as well as the global level. Thereby, circulation is framed and envisaged in both a systematic and a material fashion. The Arctic is represented as a region that might not only benefit regionally from circulation, but that could also contribute to enabling and ensuring global circulation.
Biopolitics
Over the past two to three decades, the status and livelihoods of people that actually live in the Arctic have, after a long history of neglect and displacement, played an increasing (although varied) role within the individual riparian states. The rights of indigenous peoples have become a more prominent issue in national as well as in international–regional contexts as a result of the increasing prominence of the global normative framework for indigenous rights. Both the relations between indigenous peoples in the Arctic and their participation in (the formation of) regional institutions have increased over the years (see Shadian, 2006; Tennberg, 2010).
Beyond, and in addition to a rights-oriented approach, inhabitants of the Arctic have become addressees of an encompassing biopolitical concern. This biopolitical interest does not so much focus on legal structures and rights, but more on provisions that regulate a sociobiological ecosystem, in which ‘power comes to take species existence as its referent object’ (Dillon, 2010: 64) in order to make life live and flourish (De Larrinaga and Doucet, 2008: 520; Dillon, 2010; Dillon and Reid, 2009; Foucault, 2004a: 78ff., 108ff., 158, 346, 501–505). Thereby, biopolitics are connected to and framed along governmental security rationalities since they ‘revolve around the properties of biological being’ (Dillon, 2010: 65). In contrast to a sovereign, rather traditional understanding of security, governmental security does not follow a restricting, limiting logic, but aims to enable and safeguard the full deployment of the potentials of a biopolitical ecosystem and its various social milieus. In this context, humans are not conceptualized primarily as citizens, legal objects/subjects or rights-holders, but constituted as populations differentiated along statistical distribution and social milieus, as well as being addressed by specific subjectivation processes and (self-)improvement policies and measures (Bigo, 2008: 103–106; Foucault, 2004a: 70–72, 95, 98, 156ff.).
Taking a look at the more prominent role of Arctic inhabitants in recent Arctic discourses and politics, as well as at the way in which people living in the Arctic are represented discursively, we can indeed identify the deployment of biopolitical rationalities and their corresponding security logics, which are based on, and reflected in, an all-encompassing interest in the life and life conditions of Arctic inhabitants. 23 Fuelled by the melting of Arctic ice, aspirations to integrate Arctic populations into regional and global economic circulation patterns through the development of an agricultural and/or tourist sector go along with a thorough analysis of the living patterns of Arctic inhabitants. Thus, addressing Arctic indigenous peoples includes, but also transcends the circulation aspect. There are both broad as well as specialized observations of the political, social, economic, legal and cultural life situations of Arctic populations, of their indigenous traditions, their health, education, life chances and risks, economic potential, language and communication patterns, gender and generational relations, preferences, cultural thinking patterns, personal goals and so on. This focus on Arctic populations and the interest in, basically, all aspects of their life, as well as in their statistical behaviour, reflects the rise of biopolitical rationalities in the Arctic and is crucial from a governmental perspective. Systematic knowledge on the population and its milieus is necessary for the continuous governmental assessment of possible chances and risks – as a basis for specific interventions and measures aimed at the management and socioeconomic allocation of chances and risks. Where the population is addressed according to its statistical distribution, its milieus undergo differentiated biopolitical assessment and are targets of specified intervention and (self-)regulation incentives and measures. 24 At the same time, the biopolitical perspective on the Arctic in empirical terms goes beyond the immediate focus on populations. It is interested in the entire ecosystem with its climate conditions, its prospective alterations through climate change, its overall environmental configuration, its biological diversity, infrastructure, resources and raw materials, as well as the possible ratio between industrialization and sustainable protection in the region, and related topics (see Nordic Council of Ministers, 2014: 13). In order to allow for the development and growth of the biopolitical ‘habitat’ according to its inherent dynamics and regularities, the scope of governmental regulation comprises both the populations themselves and the whole ecosystem, in which populations and their milieus are embedded (Foucault, 2004a: 70–72, 95, 98, 156ff.)
While the majority of scholars undertaking governmentality studies follow Foucault (2004a: 150) in subordinating the law to governmental rationalities, we believe that legal aspects – and in particular claims to autonomous rights – play an important role with regard to Arctic populations. Thus, without neglecting the importance of the law, we can, however, also detect a governmental, biopolitical constitution of Arctic populations, which focuses rather on life contexts than on rights, rather on biopolitical managerial strategies than on legal procedures, ‘with rights used tactically in this process’ (Lindroth, 2014: 341; see also Foucault, 2004a: 70). The genuinely inter- and transnational setting of the Arctic seems to promote rather a regulative and governmental than a legalist approach to its populations.
Concluding thoughts
We have argued that the Arctic can be analyzed usefully as a region of unfolding governmentality, and that its regional peculiarity is reflected in the variety and plurality of representations, discourses, perceptions and imaginaries. Liberal governmentality, both as an analytical concept and as a political way of governing, relies on an inextricable entanglement between its parts. Having said this, we can indeed observe that all the main characteristic aspects of governmentality are being projected on to the Arctic region and that these governmental techniques, approaches and rationalities are closely interlinked. However, we are aware of the fact that governmentality approaches are rare in the analysis of the Arctic as a region. Nonetheless, we think that showing how governmental logics and imaginaries are being projected on to the region has a useful role to fulfil, complementary to other approaches, in portraying the Arctic both as a sociopolitical space in its entirety, as well as an international region sui generis in the process of discursive constitution. The discourses and practices of governmentality permeating the Arctic contribute to its spatial, figurative and political reframing, and aim at making it a governable region that can be addressed by, and be accessible for, ordering rationalities and measures. However, our focus on the Arctic through the governmentality lens is more a conceptual than an empirical contribution. Thus, we see this heuristic for understanding the Arctic region also as an argument for encouraging governmentality studies to apply its conceptual vocabulary to regions, as phenomena ‘above’ the nation-state, but ‘below’ the global level.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.