Scar as a healing process? reflections on science and polar politics in the cold war and beyond

the case of Norway

Stian Bones

pp. 231-249

in: Roberts Peder, Lize-Marié van der Watt, Adrián Howkins (eds), Antarctica and the humanities, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

The chapter discusses the quest for establishing multilateral agreements on Arctic research from the mid-1960s onwards. It shows how scientific cooperation in the Antarctic was regarded as a model for increased Arctic cooperation. The geopolitical pattern of the Arctic during Cold War, combined with the prevailing Soviet science diplomacy strategies, hampered these efforts, however. It was only with Mikhail Gorbachev's new thinking that the idea begun to resonate with Soviet Arctic strategies.