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The Spirit of Murmansk The Spirit of Murmansk How an Image of Cooperation shapes the Arctic by Jannes Friedrig Pittermann Picture Rights: Tapson, Natalie. Polar Bear in the Sea Ice. 9 June 2014. Photograph. Svalbard, Norway. Accessed 8 August 2020 https://www.flickr.com/photos/40325561@N04/15261017363. 1 Utrecht University Faculty of Humanities Master’s Programme International Relations in Historical Perspective MA Research Thesis The Spirit of Murmansk: How an Image of Cooperation shapes the Arctic Presented by Jannes Friedrig Pittermann Student number: 6891292 E-Mail: [email protected] Supervisor Dr. Frank Gerits Number of Words 25.330 Submission Date 8.8.2020 2 Abstract When Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed the Arctic as a zone of peace in 1987, many did not know what consequences this image of the Arctic would have in the future. The Arctic was imagined as a plain place, where the superpowers of the Cold War had their standoff with U-Boats and secret nuclear facilities. Gorbachev’s speech in Murmansk turned this image into something that can be understood through one word: cooperation. The Arctic became a region in which nation-states worked together to create international organizations, like the Arctic Council, to face common issues such as environmental protection and sustainable development. However, International Relations has not paid much attention to images and their impact in the international sphere. In the case of the Arctic, images had never been interpreted as a part of the international achievement contributing to the essence of what the region is today. Images have agency and are affecting the processes that shape the Arctic. The theory of Imagency explains how images become actors, as region-builders that take part in the discourse and shape the social world. Nation-states orient themselves at these images and have to interact with them to shape their own national identity in the international sphere. One region that displays this process is the Arctic and the Arctic nation-states. From 1989 to 2019, the image of Arctic cooperation heavily influenced the International Relations of the Arctic regarding that nation- states engaged with it. Nation-states took Arctic cooperation as a part of their own identity until the mid-2000, when this exact image was contested by the same states. Keywords: Arctic, Discourse analysis, Foucault, Image, Region-Building, Agency 3 Content Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction – Let the North of the Globe, the Arctic, become a Zone of Peace ............... 5 I. Chapter – The Image Constructs Our World ............................................................. 16 1.1 Imagency .................................................................................................................. 16 1.2 Imagology ................................................................................................................. 19 1.3 Orientalism ............................................................................................................... 23 1.5 The Arctic and its Role in the Identity of a Nation-State ......................................... 29 1.6 Evolving the Arctic International Relations ............................................................. 33 II. Chapter – The Spirit of Murmansk .............................................................................. 36 2.1 The Arctic Cooperation becomes a Region-builder ................................................. 37 2.2 Gorbachev’s Image of the Arctic: A Zone of Peace ................................................ 38 2.3 The Murmansk Speech ............................................................................................. 42 2.4 The Murmansk Speech and its Value for Arctic International Relations ................. 46 III. Chapter: The Image of the Circumpolar Arctic Cooperation ............................... 48 3.1 From Gorbachev’s Mythical Zone of Peace to the Arctic Council: At the beginning - The Rovaniemi Process ...................................................................................................... 49 3.2 The Implementation of Arctic Cooperation – The Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy ................................................................................................................................. 55 3.3 Canadian Initiative, Indigenous Communities and the establishment of the Arctic Council ................................................................................................................................. 59 3.5 The Circumpolar Arctic Cooperation Contested – Abolishment of an Image ......... 69 3.6 Russia’s North as Gate to Old Glory ........................................................................ 71 3.7 The Danish Initiative – Challenging the Arctic Eight .............................................. 72 3.8 Stewards of the Arctic Ocean ................................................................................... 76 3.9 Abolishing the Arctic Cooperation? ......................................................................... 79 Conclusion – The Arctic Cooperation and its Future ......................................................... 83 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 88 4 Abbreviations AEPS Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy Arctic Eight Group of states that consist of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, United States of America Arctic Five Group of states that consist of Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, United States of America ASRA Agreement on Cooperation on Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue in the Arctic, 2011 CLCS Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Body that implements the regulations for territory set by the UNCLOS ICC Inuit Circumpolar Conference SU Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UNCLOS United Nations Charter of the Law of the Sea US United States of America 5 Introduction – Let the North of the Globe, the Arctic, become a Zone of Peace The Arctic is a mystical place for those who dare to imagine it. Its classical representation suggests a place that no one wants to live in, where one faces endless white plains, never-ending darkness, untamed wilderness and encounters temperatures that freeze to death everything that does not have the will to survive. Nowadays, this classical image has been replaced. The new image of the Arctic can be described with one word: cooperation. In the last years of the Cold War, regarded as having been the hottest years, a new trend was established in the North. The Soviet Union (SU) started to open up to the world through its new foreign policy. Now, interdependence played a more important role than deterrence. In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed his vision of the Arctic in an official ceremony in Murmansk with the following quote: “Let the North of the globe, the Arctic, become a zone of peace.”1 Following, many people were suspicious. Even statesmen were doubting the interest of the SU to build this new zone of peace. Nevertheless, a new image of the Arctic had emerged and took the world by storm. In the following years, many nation- states were deeply influenced by Gorbachev’s Murmansk Speech and different processes that changed the Arctic from one of the most militarized regions into a place where states work together to face global challenges were initiated. Environmental pollution, climate change and indigenous people rights for selF-determination are issues that are crucial for the Arctic. The nation-states have since addressed all of these in a cooperative way, a working method that is unusual in world politics. This development raises a question for the thoughtful observer: 1 Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, The Speech in Murmansk: At the Ceremonial Meeting on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal to the City of Murmansk, October 1, 1987 (Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1987), 4, https://www.barentsinfo.fi/docs/Gorbachev_speech.pdf. 6 How could this image of Arctic cooperation succeed in an environment where conflict was still present in the political discourse and context of the Cold War? And how did this image affect the relations among the Arctic states during the years between 1989 and 2019? Further, this implicates the sub question on what role Gorbachev’s speech in Murmansk 1987 played in the creation of the image of Arctic cooperation and inquires how an image could gain agency and take part in the international relations of the Arctic. Many scholars of International Relations2 had devoted themselves to the phenomenon of the Arctic. Especially one specific question has risen frequently since the 1980’s: Is there rather conflict or cooperation in the Arctic? This question is hard to answer, as world events suggested a tendency towards conflict in the Arctic, considering the context of the Cold War, the rising quarrel over oil and gas reserves in the Arctic, or the increasingly critical issue of climate change. Simultaneously, the persisting discourse between nation-states in the Arctic generated more and more cooperative institutions like the Arctic Council, the Barents-European Council, and the Northern Forum. The scholars’ own positionality in the Arctic also strongly affects how this question could be answered, especially when considering whether they are researching
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