Elana Wilson Rowe

Same word, same idea? Sustainable development talk and the Russian Arctic

Sustainable development has become an ‘obligatory’ concept that can encompass many kinds of policies and practices, including in the Russian Arctic. Russia inherited a set of ‘home-grown’ science-policy vocabularies and practices relating to environmental risk and a strong focus on protected areas/national...

Sceptical diplomacy: Should heads of state bother to talk climate change science with Putin?

This policy brief illustrates how the Russian top leadership discusses climate change and responds to interventions and efforts made by other countries’ leaders and high-level diplomats on the topic of climate change. The policy brief presents one data set examining the distribution of the Kremlin’s...

Valdai Paper #92: Russia’s Far East Initiatives in Troubled Geopolitical Times

The China–Russia rapprochement forms the centrepiece of Russia’s much hyped policy of a ‘turn to the East’, a policy aimed at transforming the Russian Far East from a territorial backwater into a new gateway to China, North-East Asia and beyond. In 2013, President Vladimir Putin declared the development...

Codeword China

(Fra kronikk): When it comes to Arctic regional political governance and economic outlooks, the policy and academic communities have become good at asking ‘what about China’ and facilitating a conversation on several policy issues. All the main Arctic conferences have panels on China in the Arctic in...

Arctic Governance: Power in cross-border cooperation

This book seeks to pose and explore a question that sheds light on the contested but largelyl cooperative nature of Arctic governance in the post Cold-War period: how does power matter - and how has it mattered - in shaping cross-border cooperation and diplomacy in the Arctic? Each chapter functions...

Trump, Putin and rejected greatness

Why do Putin and Trump undermine the international consensus knowledge that their national academic and governmental milieus have been so central to building?

Gateway or Garrison? Border regions in times of geopolitical crisis

Russia's border regions have had moments as open 'gateways' to cooperation. More often, however, the border has been viewed as a 'garrison': an outpost of state power. This chapter places the Russian Far East in the broader context of Russia's pursuit of economic development...

Afterword: 6400 kilometers away - but not a policy world apart

The Afterword presents two key findings from this volume. First, while numerous new strategy documents and instruments have been adopted in recent years, contributing authors voice concern about the steps Moscow has taken to translate lofty ideas into practical policies. Second, the key initiatives were...

Russia's Turn to the East - Domestic Policymaking and Regional Cooperation

This book is open access under a CC BY license. This book explores if and how Russian policies towards the Far East region of the country – and East Asia more broadly – have changed since the onset of the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Following the 2014 annexation and the subsequent...

Imagining the future: local perceptions of Arctic extractive industry projects that didn't happen

Climate change and globalisation are opening up the Arctic for exploitation by the world – or so we are told. But what about the views, interests, and needs of the peoples who live in the region? What about the myriad of other factors affecting the Arctic and its peoples? This book explores opportunities...

Commentary: Neighbors in a changed terrain

Forrige uke publiserte regjeringen et nytt strategidokument for nordområdene. Denne kommentaren tar for seg noen av de viktigste temaene på det internasjonale feltet i strategien.

Promises, promises: The unbuilt petroleum environment in Murmansk

The Arctic as a booming oil and gas province has been a predominant geopolitical representation of the region. However, the shale gas revolution in the United States and the drop in oil prices since late 2014 has reduced the viability of many high-cost Arctic oil and gas prospects. Little scholarly...

The Arctic and a Trump Administration Yet to Come

How may the Trump administration affect the Arctic? This is the topic for Elana Wilson Rowe's High North News commentary.