Contesting the European Union at the “Poles”: a multi-level analysis of contestation of the EU’s presence in the Arctic

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article searches for the types of contestation that arise to an EU presence in a region where the EU is not a dominant actor, like in the Arctic. The issue areas that this article focuses on are environmental protection, indigenous people’s rights, and (sustainable) economic development. The article presents a critical discourse analysis of the national strategy documents of EU member states, non-EU Arctic Council members and non-EU, non-Arctic observers of the Arctic Council from a discourse-historical approach. Through this analysis, the article focuses on normative/political and external/internal contestation to the EU stance represented through EU policies, positions, priorities and norms. This article concludes that there are different types of contestation to the EU from different sources in each policy area. In each of these cases of contestation, the EU makes an explicit decision about which source of contestation to engage with and about which types to remain silent.