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Part of book ISBN 978-1-5128-2405-6, 978-1-5128-2406-3QC 20230906

Part of ISBN [9781800733350, 9781805393115]QC 20240702

This article provides an historical account and analysis of the repurposing of Ny-Ålesund from Arctic coalmining settlement to Norwegian-administered international research base in Svalbard. Three levels of analysis are employed to explain the settlement’s transformation and its rising geopolitical significance, focusing primarily on the period of rapid internationalisation and expansion of scientific activities starting in the late 1980s. The local level examines Norway’s efforts to maintain effective occupation of greater Kongsfjorden by promoting research, underpinned by the economisation of the area’s near-pristine natural environment as a non-extractive resource for science; the global level applies the concept of telecoupling to consider the role of events and processes at larger spatial scales that facilitated Ny-Ålesund’s transformation; and the “glocal” level explains how the interaction of Norwegian and global actors in the locality of Ny-Ålesund have collectively shaped the community’s institutions over some 30 years. The article also reflects on recent policy changes signalling more assertive Norwegian administration and greater coordination of research in Ny-Ålesund., QC 20191129

QC 20180504

This article adapts and applies a securitisation framework to produce an analytical explanation for the heightened geopolitical status of climate change over the past decade, as demonstrated by the breakthrough Paris Agreement of 2015. Rather than speech acts invoking security, the focus of this analysis is on the socio-scientific discourse of global climate crisis that emerged in the several year period leading to the 2009 COP 15 conference in Copenhagen. Two types of experts—contributory and interactional—are identified as the essential and interdependent actors that engaged in ‘crisification’, a novel crisis-based perspective on political agenda setting, in which climate crisis served as a primary discursive device employed by prominent advocates of urgent action. Contributory experts, that is, authoritative climate scientists and their institutions, together with interactional experts—non-scientist social actors who appropriated and mediated scientific data and knowledge in framing climate change as a global crisis—constituted an extended epistemic community of climate advocates. Through an array of speech acts, this extended community effectively co-constructed a convincing climate crisis discourse that consisted of quantitative data artefacts based on CO2 concentration and global mean temperature, and qualitative invocations of existential threat to human civilisation, which contributed to the ascent of climate change on the global political agenda. In proposing crisification as a complement to securitisation, the article offers a theoretical innovation that facilitates constructivist analysis of issues framed as crises, including geopolitical problems in certain non-military sectors where crisis is a favoured label for perceived threats to core values.

This article examines and qualifies the proposition that humankind’s recently acquired geological agency has brought about the convergence of Earth and human history. Contrasting a contemporary representation of human–nature interactions – the ‘Great Acceleration graphs’ documenting humanity’s post-war dominance – with an earlier perspective elaborated by Fernand Braudel, whose historical philosophy assigned physical geography powerful agency over human affairs, this article contends that ‘environmental crisis’ is a valid characterization of the post-1950 reordering of human–nature relations. Yet it is not a ‘proper’ crisis, as the environmental and climate crisis cannot be managed as a discrete event – as crises are often thought of today – in hope of restoring the status quo ante. Drawing on an older connotation of crisis, this article proposes a temporal conceptualization of environmental crisis, signifying a multi-decade historical period of reordering that spans the decline of the Holocene and advent of the Anthropocene. The intended and unintended consequences of human decisions will determine whether convergence, through reflexivity or coercion, results from this ongoing epochal transition., QC 20151211

QC 20140414, Assessing Arctic Futures (Mistra Arctic Futures)

QC 20130114

QC 20130114

CNDS

QC 20120114

While some of the future impacts of global environmental change such as some aspects of climate change can be projected and prepared for in advance, other effects are likely to surface as surprises - that is situations in which the behaviour in a system, or across systems, differs qualitatively from expectations. Here we analyse a set of institutional and political leadership challenges posed by 'cascading' ecological crises: abrupt ecological changes that propagate into societal crises that move through systems and spatial scales. We illustrate their underlying social and ecological drivers, and a range of institutional and political leadership challenges, which have been insufficiently elaborated by either crisis management researchers or institutional scholars. We conclude that even though these sorts of crises have parallels to other contingencies, there are a number of major differences resulting from the combination of a lack of early warnings, abrupt ecological change, and the mismatch between decision-making capabilities and the cross-scale dynamics of social-ecological change.

This article probes the warning-response failures that left the city of New Orleans vulnerable to catastrophic hurricanes and the inability of local, state, and federal authorities to mount an adequate response to the consequences unleashed by Hurricane Katrina. Through an empirical exploration with the help of three broad explanatory ‘cuts’ derived from the relevant interdisciplinary literature – psychological, bureauorganizational, and agenda-political – the authors seek to shed light on the sources of failure that contributed to the various levels of governments’ lack of preparedness and the inadequate collective response to a long-predicted, upper-category hurricane. The article concludes by addressing the question of whether the vulnerabilities and problems that contributed to the Katrina failure are amenable to reform.

Climate change has been seen as a crisis looming in the future, and has therefore not reached the top of the political agenda. This no longer holds true when looking at Australia, where climate change has become high politics. In this paper we examine the Australian electoral debate in terms of accountability framing, where the Government and Opposition were involved in a ‘framing contest’. We argue that theories on accountability framing in crisis need to be modified in order to capture the complex dynamics of climate change due to its inherent scientific uncertainty and global nature. After conducting an inductive analysis of Australian Broadcasting Corporation‐reporting we found three themes to be of importance for accountability framing in the ‘risk society’: labeling, linking and coping.

Climate change has been seen as a crisis looming in the future, and has therefore not reached the top of the political agenda. This no longer holds true when looking at Australia, where climate change has become high politics. In this paper we examine the Australian electoral debate in terms of accountability framing, where the Government and Opposition were involved in a 'framing contest'. We argue that theories on accountability framing in crisis need to be modified in order to capture the complex dynamics of climate change due to its scientific uncertainty and global nature. After conducting and inductive study of Australian Broadcasting Corporation-reporting we found three themes to be of importance for accountability in the 'risk society': labeling, linking and coping.

QS 2015

This paper examines how science has been employed to establish, maintain, and contest senses of belonging on Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago administered by Norway since 1925 under an international treaty. The central argument is that the process of constructing Svalbard as a space belonging to Norway has long been intertwined with the processes of describing and representing the archipelago, and that participating in those processes has also permitted other states to articulate their own narratives of belonging— on Svalbard in particular and in the Arctic more generally. The concept of belonging is deployed to capture a sense of legitimate presence and stakeholdership that we do not believe can be adequately captured by the narrow concept of sovereignty. The article explores Norway’s historic and current use of science to validate (and even naturalize) its rule over Svalbard. At the same time, we argue that other states use science on Svalbard to articulate geopolitical scripts that portray them as stakeholders in an Arctic that is of trans-regional relevance due to the teleconnected effects of climate change., QC 20151211

This paper examines how science has been employed to establish, maintain, and contest senses of belonging on Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago administered by Norway since 1925 under an international treaty. The central argument is that the process of constructing Svalbard as a space belonging to Norway has long been intertwined with the processes of describing and representing the archipelago, and that participating in those processes has also permitted other states to articulate their own narratives of belonging— on Svalbard in particular and in the Arctic more generally. The concept of belonging is deployed to capture a sense of legitimate presence and stakeholdership that we do not believe can be adequately captured by the narrow concept of sovereignty. The article explores Norway’s historic and current use of science to validate (and even naturalize) its rule over Svalbard. At the same time, we argue that other states use science on Svalbard to articulate geopolitical scripts that portray them as stakeholders in an Arctic that is of trans-regional relevance due to the teleconnected effects of climate change.