The present volume is the first compilation of articles dealing with the Arctic which this reviewer has seen under the banner of a ‘handbook’. The title, which frames the book's content as dealing with the ‘politics’ of the Arctic, opens up an impressive, and somewhat daunting, work which contains contributions of the ‘who-is-who’ of political, legal and IR Arctic research: Klaus Dodds, E. Carina H. Keskitalo, Timo Koivurova, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Mark Nuttall, Donald R. Rothwell or David L. VanderZwaag – just to name a few. All in all, 42 authors have in 29 chapters contributed to this volume, making it, just by its sheer size, a unique and important collection of Arctic research. And moreover, it constitutes an updated and timely version of Geir Hønneland's endeavour to capture The politics of the Arctic between 1985 and 2012 with already published international articles in the book with the same title (Hønneland Reference Hønneland2013).
It appears to this author that, on a very general level, a handbook provides a guide of some kind to a topic, a machine or any other context. In this sense it is surprising that the book does not contain an introduction. The editors merely open up the concentrated expertise with a 1 ½ page Preface in which they explain the book's scope as tracing ‘the changes from ‘the age of the Arctic’ to ‘the scramble for the Arctic’, and beyond’ (page xiii). Any other explanation that make this handbook more of a practical guide to Arctic politics is, unfortunately, absent. Be this as it may, this editorial shortcoming is quickly made up for by the thought-provoking, short and yet poignant articles that follow. Four major parts thus constitute the sub-headings under which the articles are arranged: geopolitics and strategic resources; law of the sea; Arctic institutions and specific fields of cooperation; and national approaches to the Arctic.
And to this reviewer it seems as if the multifaceted character of this volume rises particularly to the surface when leaving aside the ‘political’ aspects of the chapters’ contents. Of course, given the title of this book, this would seem as a non sequitur, but while of course the political (as well as legal and IR) dimensions of the book constitute the core foundation, it is the variety of discourses on, about and with the Arctic which play a significant role here. Best exemplified is this in Bankes’ and Withsitt's chapter on Arctic marine mammals in international environmental law and trade law which approaches the marine mammal hunt through a legal lens by analysing multilateral environmental instruments (MEIs) affecting the hunt in the north. While admitting that their analysis would have to include more than the five MEIs presented, this chapter shows the discursive as well as normative differences in dealing with human-marine mammal interaction in the Arctic. Indeed, politics are reflected in the dealings with the issue. But it is the political decisions which, in turn, are shaped by conservationist or preservationist value systems that impact the way and the degree to which Arctic populations are able to, and do, hunt marine mammals.
Similarly, Lee-Ann Broadhead addresses Canadian sovereignty versus northern security: the case for updating our mental map of the Arctic. In other words, Broadhead challenges the snug discourse on state sovereignty in Canada and proposes a new paradigm with the discursive approach towards Arctic sovereignty, along historical Inuit and thus transboundary settlement of the north, as a tool to mitigate the challenges posed by anthropogenic climate change. In times of increasing nationalism and ever more rising idea(l)s of one nation and one culture, Broadhead's counter-discursive chapter appears refreshing, especially when taking into account the medial discourse on the Arctic and natural resources. Of course, one might argue that within scientific circles her approach is neither necessarily new nor overly progressive, once more underlining the need for a broader distribution of the contents of a book like the present. However, with a price of almost 190£, which amounts to almost 270€ or 290 US$, this appears very doubtful.
Be that as it may, this is, of course, a general problem of scientific volumes such as the present and will not be further discussed at this point. For the critical Arctic scholar the Handbook of the politics of the Arctic is indeed almost a goldmine as he or she will find new approaches to topics that have been part of the overall discourses on the Arctic for a long time. This time, they are revisited, reframed and put in a new light. Although the book does not contain only new information and even some very basic information on Arctic governance in general, which the trained Arctic scholar might easily skip, the broad variety of the themes that are covered, the challenging topics and somewhat provocative chapters – How we learned to stop worrying about China's Arctic ambitions: understanding China's admission to the Arctic Council, 2004–2013 by Matthew Willis and Duncan Depledge for instance – make this book truly enjoyable in an academic, intellectual as well as discursive way.
Of course, with 29 chapters on more than 600 pages this book is exceptionally long and does not serve as evening literature nor is it suitable to be read through in one piece. Instead, the ‘goldmine’-metaphor can be applied again: from now on, this book will serve as a valuable point of reference whenever this reviewer needs a new and rare perspective on a particular Arctic issue. In this sense, the absence of an introduction and a conclusion appear reasonable. With this in mind, however, the title could be considered slightly misleading and it would have appeared more justifiable to entitle the book The politics of the Arctic, Volume 2 or something similar. But these are semantics. In terms of content, the wide variety of topics and angles covered make the Handbook a necessary and valuable contribution to any well-arranged Arctic library.
