1st Edition
Critical Geopolitics of the Polar Regions An Inter-American Perspective
Focusing on both Polar Regions, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of political processes related to the rapidly changing Arctic and Antarctic, where the environmental impacts of human activities are extremely visible.
Environmental changes in the Arctic and the Antarctic are increasingly seen as barometers of the global impact of human activities, while newly arising economic opportunities in both Polar Regions prompt predictions that they will be the site of future conflicts. This book maps and analyses the different actors involved in the politics of the Polar Regions to explain why similar patterns of interpretation of such major issues have become dominant in practical, popular and formal geopolitical discourses. Disentangling the politics, the author illustrates how the ordering principles have evolved, explains recent dynamics in political processes and provides the groundwork needed to better forecast future trends. By focusing on the Americas, the only continent that borders both Polar Regions, the author shows how geographic proximity inspires interaction and cooperation among state and non-state actors in very different ways.
This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, political geography, international relations, global governance and cultural studies. It will have an international appeal particularly in the Americas, and other countries with growing interests in the Polar Regions.
1 Introduction: Critical Geopolitics of the Polar Regions and an Inter-American Perspective
1.1 Significance of the Changing Polar Regions and of Polar Politics
1.2 Terminology
1.3 Structure of the Book
2 Investigating the Politics of the Polar Regions: Research Gaps and a New Perspective
2.1 The Polar Regions in Political Science Literature
2.2 A New Perspective: Entangled Actors and Discourses in the Politics of the Polar Regions
2.3 Identifying (Dis)Entangled Actors and Discourses
3 Practical Geopolitics: Representing the Changing Polar Regions in Regional and Domestic Politics
3.1 Regional Polities: Institutional Settings and Frameworks
3.2 Geopolitical Reasoning in Regional Politics of the Polar Regions
3.3 Geopolitical Reasoning in the Domestic Politics of the Polar Regions
4 Popular Geopolitics: The Changing Polar Regions in Newspaper Reporting
4.1 Newspaper Reporting in Argentina, Chile, Canada and the United States
4.2 Themes Mainly Addressed in Newspapers
4.3 Geopolitical Reasoning: The Representation of the Changing Polar Regions and Their Politics in Newspapers
5 Formal Geopolitics: The Changing Polar Regions in Assessments by Non-Governmental Theorists and Strategists
5.1 Non-Governmental Theorists and Strategists in the Politics of the Polar Regions
5.2 Geopolitical Reasoning: The Representation of the Changing Polar Regions and Their Politics by Non-Governmental Theorists and Strategists
6 Conclusions: Entangled/Disentangled Actors and Discourses in the Politics of the Polar Regions
6.1 Changing Political Influence? State and Non-State Actors in the Politics of the Polar Regions
6.2 Entangled Geopolitical Discourses in the Politics of the Polar Regions?
6.3 From Changing Polar Regions Towards a New Inter-American Political Space?
6.4 Further Prospects and Research
Biography
Dorothea Wehrmann studied Social Sciences with a major in Sociology, InterAmerican Studies and Political Communication at the University of Osnabrück and Bielefeld University (Germany). She holds a PhD in Political Science, is affiliated with the Center for InterAmerican Studies, the Institute for World Society Studies and the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology and works as a researcher at the German Development Institute/ Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE).
