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Facing Arctic Challenges at Sea

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Coast Guards and Ocean Politics in the Arctic

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Abstract

This introduction makes use of an example—the Elektron-case—to outline the growing importance of coast guard affairs in the Arctic and more generally across the oceans. What rights do states have at sea? How did these come about? What is the room for international cooperation between different countries on coast guard tasks? Why do states choose to cooperate at sea in the first place? These are the overarching questions tackled in this book and outlined in the introduction. This coincides with three trends being explored in this chapter and the book at large, namely the changes occurring at sea in the Arctic, the increasing demand for international cooperation in dealing with these changes, and finally changes occurring in ocean politics more generally.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As defined by Holsti (1995, 328).

  2. 2.

    As Kaplan argues, ‘[t]he sea, unlike land, creates clearly defined borders, giving it the potential to reduce conflict’ (2011, 79). Note the term ‘salience’, as commonly used in studies of conflict over inter-state issues to describe how much political attention a specific issue attracts. See for example Hensel et al. (2008), Nemeth et al. (2014), and Eiran (2017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Lysaker, Norway

    Andreas Østhagen

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  1. Andreas Østhagen
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Correspondence to Andreas Østhagen .

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Østhagen, A. (2020). Facing Arctic Challenges at Sea. In: Coast Guards and Ocean Politics in the Arctic. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0754-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0754-0_1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-0753-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-0754-0

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