Nordic Review of International Studies

Mitigating black carbon emissions from gas flaring and Arctic maritime shipping

Minna Hanhijärvi — 2025-06-12

The Arctic region and Russia, the major emitter of greenhouse gases, are facing effects of climate change faster than the rest of the world. Evidently, climate change and adoption to it will shape Russia’s future, and vice versa, regardless of who or what kind of a government is in power. This includes addressing the problem of black carbon and other short-lived climate pollutants from hydrocarbon industry and maritime shipping in the Northern Sea Route accelerating climate warming, with harmful effects on air quality, ecosystems and human health. Drawing on insights of international relations literature, this article examines conceptualisations of illiberalism, illiberal environmentalism and their contemporary versions in Russia, and discusses how these frameworks can be applied to understand Russia’s policy choices regarding climate change and the Arctic since the invasion in Ukraine in February 2022 and considers prospects for post-war Arctic collaboration. It finds that these conceptualisations when carefully contextualised help to identify ideational underpinnings intertwined with national interests in policy texts and illuminate connections to societal beliefs held by Russian conservatives and indicate authoritarian and illiberal practices guiding policymaking and implementation. Post-war international collaboration among climate scientists is viewed as worth pursuing, and perhaps essential, to mitigate Arctic warming.

Decolonising Arctic geopolitics and security

Laura Junka-Aikio — 2025-06-12

Ongoing geopolitical changes and the “arctification” of world politics are introducing new pressures on the Sámi people, whose lands stretch across the northernmost parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. While climate change has increased global and national interest in the Arctic region’s natural resources and logistical and transport potential already for some time, today land use in Sápmi is reshaped also by acute security and defense imaginaries which are promoting strong military build-up across the region. In this article, I discuss the challenges that these changes are presenting to the Sámi and to their ability to voice concern for their own rights, security and future. Focusing especially on the challenges associated with the energy transition as well as growing military land use, the article sketches out and introduces a notion of subaltern security dilemma (SSD), which is offered here as a tool for a critical, deconstructive and decolonial approach to the study of Arctic geopolitics and security in Sápmi and more broadly.

Arctic research infrastructures between normative ideals and geopolitical objectives

Aleksis Oreschnikoff — 2025-06-12

This discussion article explores how both scientific and security considerations are embedded in Arctic research infrastructures. It suggests that both normative ideals and geopolitical objectives can be identified in the discourses and practices surrounding the physical constructions, objects and technologies used for environmental or climate related knowledge-building in the Arctic. This has implications for developing appropriate policies that comprehensively acknowledge the science-security nexus without undue securitisation or bias. In drawing attention to the interface between Arctic science and security, and how such concerns are materially embedded, this discussion article argues that new assemblamatic approaches could allow for more relevant Arctic scientific and security related policymaking. New perspectives are needed to move beyond binary dichotomies that view Arctic politics through either normative or geopolitical frameworks. The article calls experts and academics to further address questions on the configuration of the Arctic science-security nexus, as well as on the extent to which Arctic science and security policies are mutually entangled rather than mutually exclusive.

The Arctic Fable and the Unbearable Question

Joonas Vola — 2025-06-12

This discussion article addresses the means and matters that constitute a claimed entity known as ‘the Arctic’. A polemic, poetic and problematising reading of the Arctic is conducted by using different parables, metaphors and literature displaying elephant as their centrepiece. They enable to illustrate the Arctic as a subjective aspect, disciplinary practice, product of power and knowledge, and imaginary lost object. These conditions are finally addressed with the unbearable question, formulated to either liberate or burden the ones who are the practitioners of Arctic studies.

Editorial

Johanna Vuorelma — 2025-06-12