Post a blog entry describing key policy issues of at least 2 Permanent Participants within the Arctic Council. You will find links to their websites from the Arctic Council website:
http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/about-us/permanent-participants
Using your readings as a guide, explain in your blog post how the Permanent Participants to the Arctic Council influence the work of the Council. Can you imagine a way to strengthen their influence?
Our blog: https://ps669.community.uaf.edu/
Two key policy positions: The Gwich’in Council International has a page on developing the Arctic as a food producing region, in order to improve the economic and social conditions of Arctic communities. The Inuit Circumpolar Council mentions the protection and promotion of the Inuit language.
As for how the Permanent Participants to the Arctic Council influence the work of the Council, my understanding was that they form ‘working groups’ and an ‘expert group’ to address particular issues. It seems like the Council plays an advisory role to respective state actors in the Arctic and functions more like a forum for Arctic-specific issues, which to me means there isn’t a whole lot of incentive for Arctic states to actually listen to the Council when their recommendations only take the form of non-binding resolutions and statements. The Realist in me says that states aren’t going to relinquish any authority to other actors, so instead of trying to make their resolutions binding the Council’s best bet to increase influence in my opinion is to increase their soft power through media and advocacy, in order to create political consequences for individual politicians who disregard the Council’s recommendations via public pressure.
Hi Andrew,
Interesting viewpoint regarding the realist in you – I was thinking about this yesterday and thought that depending on which theory we apply, the Council and Indigenous groups might have more chance to change something if we don’t apply the realist viewpoint. But also, the realist point of view has a lot of strong, visible arguments going for it, so a lot would need to change in general.
The Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North based out of Russia has a priority for all Northern children to attend preschool. This was aimed at minimizing the discrepancy that basic education was lacking in the Arctic areas for the Indigenous peoples. This priority was a success, and pre-k programs are now available for all Indigenous youth. It has been shown that a solid early education foundation leads to success in a child and young adult’s later years, so making this priority a reality was a positive step forward in achieving parity with their southern neighbors.
A featured project for the Inuit Circumpolar Council was an Indigenous knowledge exchange. While this was in reference to emergent matters, it can also be construed as sharing indigenous knowledge through all of the member nations, since each individual faction is so unique, yet they share some core beliefs as well. While it might not be focusing on a traditional school house setting, knowledge is knowledge. Whether we gain it as a child or an adult. It is a core believe that both organizations hold, just expressed in a different manner.
I may have missed it, but it doesn’t seem like there are any elected officials from the actual states that the Arctic Council is made up of. By having elected officials play a bigger role on the Council, maybe it could move more from an advisory board to a board that can actually implement change.