The Arctic securitization and the crisis of multilateralism: A comparison between European countries, Canada, Russian Federation and the United States of America

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the Securitization in the Arctic studying the impact of securitization processes into the Arctic multilateral institutions. It is expected that securitized sectors will not diminish the Arctic Countries multilateral participation meaning that States will not settle disputes outside the realm of multilateral institutions. In order to carry out this research, I am looking at the classical five securitization sectors: military, political, societal, economic, and environmental sector analysing the Arctic Countries security strategies via discourse analysis from the period 2007-2014. The analysis leads me to conclude that securitization is not diminishing multilateral participation following the premises of neoliberal theories and rejects the realist premises. Nevertheless, there is an exception; the US in the political sector is diminishing its multilateral participation.