Event Type
Conferences and Workshops

How to govern change in the Arctic? Are transformations governable?

Event Dates
2021-10-12 - 2021-10-13
Location
Rovaniemi, Finland

The symposium is organized in Rovaniemi, Finland in a hybrid mode via Teams.

”Arctic change” is a popular way to frame current developments and to discuss the future of the region as a complex set of interconnected environmental, social and economic changes taking place in the region and leading to its fundamental transformation. Different forms of governance to guide and govern these changes is yet another topical but a complex set of issues connecting different levels of societal actors, forms of action, and concerns, such as sustainability and equity. Also, the question remains whether these transformations are in anyway governable, and what are the possible unintended and unwanted effects of any efforts of governance. Consequently, it becomes evident that governance in Arctic regions goes far beyond the schemes of regional authorities and the policies of few supranational bodies (e.g. Arctic Council). This topical diversity will be addressed at the symposium.

In recent years, social science-based research has produced a myriad of concepts, approaches and methodologies to understand societal transformations and their governability, such as collaborative governance, interactive governance, metagovernance, governmentality and global governance, to name just a few. In order to understand better (un)governability of Arctic change, we invite critically oriented presentations to the Northern Political Economy Symposium 2021 to discuss governance of Arctic transformations as well as examples of empirical research into different processes of societal transformations and their governability.

The deadline for abstracts of proposed presentations is 24 September 2021.

For more information please follow the link above.