‘Soft Securitization’: Unconventional Security Issues and the Arctic Council

Wilfrid Greaves,Daniel Pomerants

doi:10.7146/politik.v20i3.97152

Abstract

This article assesses the Arctic Council’s role as a security actor in the context of a rapidly changing circumpolar region. It investigates how the Arctic Council uses security language, and which issues it depicts as relevant to Arctic security. The article does this by undertaking textual analysis of ‘securitizing moves’ represented in the Council’s publicly available online documents, including declarations and agreements, policy papers, working group reports, public statements, and other related sources. The findings offer empirical insights into the Arctic Council and the construction of Arctic security issues, as well as theoretical reflections on the analytical usefulness of securitization theory, and the dynamics of constructing unconventional security issues in a multilateral intergovernmental forum.

Highlights

The Arctic Council is the principal institution for Arctic regional governance, and it is involved in numerous activities in the Arctic region
We find there is some evidence to suggest that the Arctic Council depicts certain issues as relevant to security in the Arctic, but that most instances of its use of security language conform to adjectival uses of security rather than securitizing moves that identify specific threats
The structure and nature of the Arctic Council raise a number of relevant questions for securitization, with the most important being: which entities does the actor-audience relationship necessary for successful securitization operate between? International governmental organizations (IGOs) pose a number of theoretical and empirical challenges for securitization in this regard, the question of whether they are best understood as fora for state actors to make security claims to other states or whether they can operate as securitizing actors or audiences in their own right (Hanrieder and Kreuder-Sonnen 2014; McInnes and Rushton 2011)

Summary

Introduction

The Arctic Council is the principal institution for Arctic regional governance, and it is involved in numerous activities in the Arctic region. This article contributes to understanding the Arctic Council’s role as a security actor in the context of a rapidly changing circumpolar region, and provides a starting point for assessing securitizing moves by a regional international governmental organization As such, it asks: Does the Arctic Council use security language to depict particular. The article undertakes textual analysis of the Council’s publicly available online documents, including multilateral agreements and declarations, policy papers, working group reports, public statements, and other related sources It examines the Council’s use of security language to assess whether such rhetoric is mobilized to identify specific threat-referent relationships or whether such rhetoric is mobilized in an ‘adjectival’ sense that does not construct particular issues as existentially threatening. The concluding section offers some reflections on the Arctic Council and the construction of Arctic security issues, as well as theoretical reflections on the analytical usefulness of securitization theory, and the dynamics of constructing unconventional and contested security threats in a multilateral intergovernmental forum

Securitization Theory

Governance and the Arctic Council

Security Issues and the Arctic Council

Conclusion