Researcher
Elana Wilson Rowe
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Dr Elana Wilson Rowe is research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Wilson Rowe’s research and expertise areas include governance of nature and changing power relations in the Anthropocene, Arctic and ocean governance and geopolitics, and Russian climate and Arctic policymaking. Her publications explore how the interplay of diplomatic practices, security rivalries and expert/environmental knowledge shape outcomes and understandings in regional and global policy fields.
She is the author of Russian Climate Politics: When Science Meets Policy (Palgrave, 2013) and Arctic Governance: Power in cross-border relations (University of Manchester, 2018). She was a member of Norway’s committee establishing research priorities for the UN Ocean Decade. She holds a BA in Russian and Geography from Middlebury College (USA) and an MPhil and PhD in Geography/Polar Studies from the University of Cambridge (2006). More publications and links can be found on Google Scholar.
Wilson Rowe is PI of and leads a 5- year major grant from the European Research Council (#80335, read more about the Lorax project here or on Twitter with #loraxprojectERC). The aim of this project is to understand the broader regional and global repercussions of governance efforts anchored in sub-global ‘ecosystems’ or ‘ecoregions’ (as identified by adjacent actors) and how the power relations enacted around ecosystems shape regional and global ordering. The project has some global review elements and focuses on three key cases: the Arctic, the Amazon and the Caspian Sea. Wilson Rowe has also led projects funded by the Norwegian Research Council, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Ministry of Defence.
Expertise
Education
2002-2006 D. Phil., human geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
2001-2002 M. Phil., human geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
1997-2001 B.A., Geography/Russian, Middlebury College, Vermont, USA
Work Experience
2006- Senior Research Fellow/Research Professor, NUPI
2006- Senior research fellow, NUPI 2010- Adjunct Professor at Nord University
2002-2006 Teaching Assistant/Supervisor, Geography Department, University of Cambridge
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersUnexplored resources for EU Arctic policy: Energy, oceans and space
The EUs current Arctic policy from 2016 focuses on climate and environmental protection, sustainable development and international cooperation. The EU has followed up with contributions to research and international cooperation in these areas. However, the EU’s engagement in the Arctic is overlooked internally – with the Arctic perceived of as a marginal arena for policy action – and externally – with a lack of broader recognition for the EU’s Arctic efforts and contributions. We suggest that the EU has perhaps defined its Arctic policy approach - and understood Arctic governance - too narrowly. Arctic policy has been a niche concern in Brussels, and this has resulted in a focused and consistent approach, but involved too few EU actors in Arctic policymaking. Consequently, the EU has unwittingly limited its role in the Arctic and made it even more difficult to formulate a convincing narrative about what the EU has to do with and in the Arctic. In our view, there are three broader policy areas that have untapped potential for giving additional ballast to the EU as an Arctic actor: energy, ocean and space governance.
EU's Arktispolitik er for snæver
Energy politics, space policy and ocean governance need to be considered, if the EU is to succeed in creating a well-founded and effective political narrative about its own role in the Arctic.
Doubling Down on Arctic Diplomacy
What impact will the new Biden administration have on Arctic politics? While the Arctic as a region is not likely to figure as feature in the 100-day plan of a new Biden presidency, there are reasons to expect some key changes for the region.
Doubling Down on Arctic Diplomacy
The Arctic looms large in the popular consciousness as a potential new theatre of conflict. But the real risk is that the consuming politics of great power rivalry will deflect attention from the real progress of diplomacy and the everyday work of Arctic governance. This op-ed outlines three key areas that merit greater diplomatic attention and could pay dividends in reducing the impact of great power competition on the rapidly changing Arctic.
Rethinking Arctic Governance
New perspectives on power in Arctic governance - interview and book talk about 'Arctic Governance: Power in cross-border cooperation' (Manchester University Press, 2018). Podcast and transcript.
A Governance and Risk Inventory for a Changing Arctic
Many government officials, military leaders, and political observers have proclaimed the rise of a new, post-Cold War global great power competition between the United States, Russia, and China with myriad implications. Using this new reality as the backdrop for the Arctic Security Roundtable at the Munich Security Conference 2020, roundtable participants are asked to explore, discuss, and debate this issue in the context of, and implications for the new globalized Arctic. This paper – a primer of Arctic trends, risks, and institutions – provides a useful starting point for the discussion. Discussing Arctic security in high-level forums is important. One might ask why we should take the time to discuss the Arctic if we are not fighting a war there. The answer is this: there is a new ocean opening up due to global climate change. There is a promising track record of governance cooperation in the region that serves as a basis for pursuing sustainable management of and peace in this new ocean. The point of dialogue – with an emphasis on cooperation, joint governance and outlining risks and potential tipping points – is to make sure that we do not add the Arctic to the already far-too-long list of global hot spots. The Arctic Security Roundtable at the Munich Security Conference 2020 provides one such confidential forum for proactive and constructive debate on Arctic security issues.
Governing complexity in the Arctic region
This book argues that confining our understandings of Arctic governance to Arctic states and a focus on the Arctic Council as the primary site of circumpolar governance provides an incomplete picture. Instead, the authors embrace the complexity of governance in the Arctic by systematically analyzing and comparing the position, interventions, and influence of different actor groups seeking to shape Arctic political and economic outcomes in multiple sites of Arctic politics, both formal and informal. This book assesses the potential that sub-national governments, corporations, civil society organizations, Indigenous peoples, and non-Arctic states possess to develop norms and standards to ensure a stable, rule-based Arctic region.
Analyzing Frenemies: An Arctic repertoire of cooperation and rivalry
Intensive transnational cooperation and manifestations of the NATO-Russia security rivalry have endured for over 30 years in the post-Cold War Arctic. Drawing upon the concept of repertoires from the social movement literature, this article seeks to make a conceptual contribution as to how we might better analyse and articulate the simultaneity of these practices and narratives of cooperation and rivalry in the circumpolar region. Repertoires are typically defined as bundles of semi-structured/semi-improvisational practices making up a context-contingent performance (for example, by civil society towards the ‘state’). These repertoires are argued to be created and performed in ‘contentious episodes’, rather than structured by long-term trends or evidenced in single events. Translated to global politics, a repertoires-inspired approach holds promise for privileging an analysis of the tools and performance (and audience) of statecraft in ‘contentious episodes’ above considerations of how different forms of global order or geopolitical narratives structure options for state actors. The emphasis on the performance of statecraft in key episodes, in turn, allows us to consider whether the interplay between the practices of cooperation and rivalry is usefully understood as a collective repertoire of statecraft, as opposed to a messy output of disparate long-term trends ultimately directing actors in the region towards a more cooperative or more competitive form of Arctic regional order. The article opens with two key moments in Arctic politics – the breakup of the Soviet Union and the 2007 Arctic sea ice low. The strong scholarly baseline that these complex moments have garnered illustrates how scholars of Arctic regional politics are already employing an episodic perspective that can be usefully expanded upon and anchored with insights and methods loaned from social movement literature on repertoires. The 18-month period following Russia's annexation of Crimea is then examined in detail as a ‘contentious episode’ with an attending effort to operationalize a repertoires-inspired approach to global politics. The article concludes that a repertoire-inspired approach facilitates systematic consideration of the mixed practices of amity and enmity in circumpolar statecraft over time and comparison to other regions, as well as offers one promising answer to the growing interest in translating the insights of constructivist scholarship into foreign policy strategy.
Business as usual? The private sector’s changing role in Arctic environmental governance
How has the private sector engaged in crossborder Arctic diplomacy? Despite a focus on business actors as targets of policy recommendations from the Arctic Council and an increased attention on the importance of engaging with the private sector, we find that business actors have not yet been heavily involved in shaping Arctic governance outcomes. The brief concludes with recommendations as to how the capacity of the private sector can be engaged to secure better Arctic environmental governance.