Contesting the European Union at the “Poles”: A multi-level analysis of contestation of the EU’s presence in the Arctic

This article searches for the types of contestation that arise to an EU
presence in a region where the EU is not a dominant actor, like in the
Arctic. The issue areas that this article focuses on are environmental
protection, indigenous people’s rights, and (sustainable) economic
development. The article presents a critical discourse analysis of
the national strategy documents of EU member states, non-EU
Arctic Council members and non-EU, non-Arctic observers of the
Arctic Council from a discourse-historical approach. Through this
analysis, the article focuses on normative/political and external/
internal contestation to the EU stance represented through EU
policies, positions, priorities and norms. This article concludes that
there are different types of contestation to the EU from different
sources in each policy area. In each of these cases of contestation,
the EU makes an explicit decision about which source of
contestation to engage with and about which types to remain silent.