To acquire necessary background information concerning the topic under research, 24 semi-structured interviews (= primary interview material) were conducted with policy professionals working with the AC and its members states, respectively, the Commission and its various Directorate-Generals (DG), the Delegation of the EU to the U.S., the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EP, the Embassies and/or Permanent Representations to the EU of Denmark, France, Iceland and the U.S., the European Space Agency, the Government of Greenland, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Federal Foreign Office Germany. With several of the interviewed officials two meetings have been arranged. As a personal research interview is not considered recoverable data, no reference to these interviews is provided in the reference lists. However, every annotation to an interview is cited in a footnote as ‘Interview xx’. The digit (1-24), allocated to each interview is consecutively numbered based on the respective date of the interview being conducted, beginning with 19 June 2012 (day/month/year). In case of two interviews being conducted with the same official, the respective footnote refers to ‘Interview xx (day month year)’, with the date changing accordingly. A list illustrating all interviews, the interviewees’ given number, the institution they work for and the location and date of the interview can be found in the Appendix (Annex II, page 353). As every interviewee was given the right to remain anonymous, the full name of the interviewee and his/her respective position within his/her workplace stays with the author. All interviews usually lasted between 45 and 80 minutes with ‘semi- structured’ referring to the method of having a set of open questions as the basis of the conversation. Statements from conferences are treated equally and quoted in a footnote as: ‘Stated by title of profession at event on day month year’.
EUropean Documents and Data
From March 2008 until May 2014, the three main EUropean institutions (Commission, Council and EP) published 7+1 key documents in terms of developing the EU’s Arctic policy. An overview of these documents – Table II – introduces Subchapter 6.2 (page 198). Official statements or political speeches from EUropean policymakers complement the list of primary sources used in this dissertation. Hence,
Annex VIII (page 361) provides an overview of 15 statements and speeches given by various Commissioners and the President of the European Council from 2005 to 2013. The respective statement/speech is, however, properly quoted when referred to and can consequently be found in the reference list as well.
The author has also received several EU-internal documents, which are cited in a footnote as: ‘Stated in a year internal Institution type of document that is on file with the author’. The authors of the documents are not revealed. These documents do not reflect officially authorised EUropean opinions, as visible and accountable in the 7+1 policy documents. However, the authors work in the broader EUropean apparatus that basically develops the Arctic policy. Hence, their voices are definitely heard; it is the degree of influence that is questionable. Accordingly, it is up to the dissertation’s author discretion to use these documents in a way that does not falsify the interpretation of the policy process.
Secondary Literature
Additionally, the dissertation draws on secondary literature both from scholarship on Arctic studies, European foreign policy, geopolitics, and critical geopolitics as well as from think tank and consultancy reports, magazines, journal articles and newspaper data. Sources found online were both saved as pdf-, docx- or jpeg-file and stored locally on a hard drive. Many of the academic documents were selected using a snowball sampling method, where references to a certain topic have been followed to other references, and so on.
Moreover, several academic articles, reports or online commentaries written or co-authored by the dissertation’s author on various (EU-)Arctic-related topics are quoted and referred to throughout this dissertation. In addition to the author’s work for a think tank focusing on Arctic matters,56 the quoted work highlights the comprehensive knowledge on (EU)-Arctic affairs that has been developed and gained ever since 2008/2009.
“Have you heard the one about the disappearing ice?”
57PART THREE
UNDERSTANDING THE ARCTIC CONTEXT
The Roadmap for Part Three
After ‘unpacking’ the various conceptual components of geopolitics, the dissertation’s second step concerns the ‘unpacking’ of geopolitics in a distinct regional case. Hence, and in order to understand the context, Part Three gives an in- depth explanation about the re-geopoliticisation of the Arctic region over the last decade. Essentially, Part Three and its Chapter 4, respectively, tells the comprehensive story of how the circumpolar North became an emerging space of and for geopolitics.
Thus, the thick description of the geopolitical Arctic of the 21st century starts with Subchapter 4.1 and an overview on various definitions of the Arctic’s spatial scope. Subsequently, Subchapter 4.2 (‘history and identity’) briefly highlights the Arctic’s geopolitical roots and looks back on a century of Arctic exploration and space making. Subchapter 4.3 (‘Arctic rights’) comprehensively clarifies why the region cannot be referred to as a legal and institutional black hole but has to be rather characterised by the (peaceful) interaction between the A8 based on a broad variety of regimes. It is followed by Subchapter 4.4 (‘Arctic interests’), which fulfils the purpose to deconstruct the three major economic Arctic storylines of the past decade:
1. The Arctic as next global energy hot spot? (Section 4.4.2) 2. The Arctic as next golden silk route? (Section 4.4.3) 3. The Arctic as next global ‘protein shake’? (Section 4.4.4)
Subchapter 4.5 (‘Arctic responsibilities’) briefly examines questions of socio- environmental concerns of a changing Arctic. Lastly, Subchapter 4.6 encapsulates the sketched triangle of Arctic rights, interests and responsibilities by providing an executive summary of the reached findings on an ‘unpacked’ geopolitical Arctic of the 21st century. Eventually, Part Three serves as the contextual basis for the
empirical-analytical part of this dissertation – Part Four – as it gives account why over the last decade an emerging international Arctic caught EUropean attention as an envisaged space of necessary EUropean action. Moreover, this detailed consideration of the Union’s ‘Northern neighbourhood’ clarifies the sui generis character of the Arctic region.