Why and When We Study the Arctic in Canada

Abstract

In the study of Canadian foreign policy, interest in the is far from constant; it waxes and wanes. When the is on the agenda, some argue that it receives disproportionately high attention; when it is off the agenda, there are calls for more attention to the issue.1 Currently, are in the midst of a surge in public interest in the the likes of which we have not experienced since the days ofthe Cold War.2 Given these strong fluctuations and the current trend, it is worth asking why and when we study and discuss the Arctic. This article traces the fluctuations in attention to the and provides some reflections on why these have occurred. To that end it adopts a historical perspective and draws on the Canadian foreign relations index.The Canadian foreign relations index lists works, documents, speeches, and publications in Canadian foreign policy since 1945. Formerly compiled by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, it is currently housed and compiled by the John Holmes library at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Thanks to this resource, it is possible to determine when commentators and researchers have focused on the and when they neglected it. As will be seen, an analysis ofthe index's 690 references that focus on the indicates that in Canada, there is no one age ofthe to use Young's formula, but three - between 1969 and 1977, between 1983 and 1991, and from 2006 onwards.3 During these three periods, the figured as an important issue, whereas outside these periods it was only a secondary matter of concern. These periods correspond, respectively and with some qualifications, to the prime ministerships of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1968-79 and 1980-84), Brian Mulroney (1984-93) and Steven Harper (since 2006).The is a politicized issue, which means that it is politically charged or carries considerable political salience. Obviously, no theme is without political implications in Canadian foreign policy and all issues are politicized to a degree. Foreign policy, as with any other field in social science, is inevitably linked to the political and social context from which it emerges. No field of social science can be analyzed or understood in isolation from the social and political context in which it is steeped. Nonetheless, issues are not uniformly politicized and there are specific logics at play. For example, the question of Quebec was only addressed extensively from the end of the 1960s, and the first article dealing with gender issues and the role of women in Canadian foreign policy was published only in 1985.4In this article, the focus is on what determines interest in the Arctic. To identify these determinants, this article focuses on the three periods mentioned above. It analyzes the themes common to them, but also the specific character of each. It concludes with a discussion of why the has been heavily studied in some periods and neglected in others. The attention of commentators and researchers has fluctuated along complex lines, and the conclusion presents some of these.METHOD AND RESULTSThe Canadian foreign relations index is representative of the works produced in Canadian foreign policy: in September 2009 it listed more than 50,000 references from 1945 onwards. It is therefore a useful tool to study foreign policy and its evolution in Canada.5Since the focus here is on the study of the Arctic, only the 28,695 scientific works listed (including articles published in newspaper and magazines) were considered. Political speeches and institutional documents were excluded from the sample. Then, works dealing with the were isolated, thanks to the identified by the managers of the database. Among the 28,695 documents listed, 312 had regions as the first subject descriptor. The 378 references that had the word Arctic in one of their secondary subject descriptors were added: put together, these 690 references constituted the sample of this study. …