The receding perennial ice sheets over the polar north have fueled interest in the possibilities for new shipping routes through Arctic waters as well as concern over growing incentives for competition in the region. While these incentives are likely to become more prevalent as Arctic ice continues to melt, to date the existing institutions dedicated to promoting cooperation in the Arctic have largely proven themselves up to the task. We examine four broad developments—increased access to new sea lanes of communication and maritime resources, ongoing disputes over Arctic claims and growing militarization of the Arctic, weakening cohesion in Arctic institutions of governance, and growing extralegal patterns of behavior among Arctic states—which, taken together, challenge the capacity of existing Arctic and maritime institutions to promote cooperation in the region. Each of these trends is troubling in isolation, but when viewed together, their effects show that the behaviors incentivized by an increasingly accessible Arctic have counterintuitively worsened the prospects for cooperation and international commerce in the Far North.
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Research Article|
May 16 2022
The Danger of Emergent Opportunities: Perverse Incentives, Climate Change, and Arctic Shipping
Adam Knight,
1
History and Political Science
, Notre Dame of Maryland University, Baltimore, Maryland
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Joshua Hastey
Joshua Hastey
2
Government
, Robertson School of Government, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia
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Global Perspectives (2022) 3 (1): 35490.
Article history
Received:
December 06 2020
Accepted:
January 25 2022
Citation
Adam Knight, Joshua Hastey; The Danger of Emergent Opportunities: Perverse Incentives, Climate Change, and Arctic Shipping. Global Perspectives 3 February 2022; 3 (1): 35490. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2022.35490
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