Study title

Many accounts of Arctic governance acknowledge that non-state actors have exercised important influence at critical junctures in regional politics. However, we know little about the role of science and business actors in contemporary Arctic governance. POLGOV seeked to address this gap with two main research tasks. First, how and why science and business actors' knowledge claims have gained purchase (or failed to do so) in two Arctic policy fields were assessed. Looking at policy developments in regional biodiversity politics and the development of oil spill prevention/response mechanisms, changes were traced in how the policy problems have been understood over time (process tracing) and seek to map and understand relationships between policy field ‘players’ (network analysis). These are the input data received for the AERI ranking of oil, gas and mining companies operating in the Arctic.