Multilateral collaborative governance of Arctic shipping safety: Examining the impact of the Arctic Council via collaborative network analysis

Abstract

Global climate change has dramatically reduced Arctic sea ice, opening new potential shipping routes, which has garnered international attention. This study explores the role of the Arctic Council in the collaborative governance network focused on Arctic shipping safety. For this purpose, a collection of 49 collaborative events initiated by international organisations and the Arctic Council was used as the data sample. These events are divided into two groups, one containing all the events and the other excluding those initiated by the Arctic Council. As a result, two collaborative networks are developed and evaluated based on network density, average path length, network transitivity, centrality indices (degree, closeness, betweenness), and clustering analysis. The results demonstrate that the Arctic Council significantly enhances the network density and transitivity of the international collaboration network, and reshapes core-periphery dynamics and cohesive subgroup structures. For instance, under the influence of the Arctic Council, Canada, France, and Japan surpass the United Kingdom in centrality (degree, closeness, betweenness). Results of the clustering coefficients reveal the Arctic Council's impact on connections among states, leading to shifts in collaboration patterns. Additionally, subgroup cohesion and density coefficients confirm the Arctic Council's role in promoting collaboration among states and restructuring governance networks.