Change and Continuity Among the Priorities of the Arctic Council’s Permanent Participants

Abstract

Indigenous peoples’ organizations provide leadership in the Arctic Council and augment leadership by Chairs and Member States. How have the priorities of the Arctic Council’s Permanent Participants changed over time? How have their priorities stayed the same? How do they differ from the priorities of Member States and the Chairs of the institutions? How do the Permanent Participants provide leadership, and clash with leadership in the institution? These major questions frame the analysis in this chapter. The Arctic Council is the region’s most important international forum, allowing a leadership role for all Arctic states and Indigenous peoples’ organizations. It is unique in that it presents Indigenous peoples’ organizations a form of membership in the institution. They are termed Permanent Participants, signifying that their participation is not subject to the whims of states. In the two decades that the Council has contributed to Arctic regional governance, Member States and Permanent Participants have worked together in a number of ways. This analysis measures the priorities of the Permanent Participants by examining their sponsorship and contributions to Council projects, accomplished through textual and statistical accounting of reports by Senior Arctic Officials. This work reveals that Permanent Participants are more likely to support local community priorities than are Member States.