Differentiated (dis)integration of preferences: Norm selectivity of stakeholders with respect to the EU's Arctic Strategy

This chapter focuses on the EU's Arctic Strategy as a distinct policy area with a focus on its sub-policy areas of security, (sustainable) economic development and the protection of the (human) rights of Indigenous Peoples, which are mapped through a differentiated (dis)integration (DI/DD) perspective. It adopts a demand-based approach to DI/DD, which sees differentiation as members having an exclusion/exemption request from certain parts of EU law and policies (DD), while non-EU stakeholders prefer to affiliate with EU policies (DI). However, as shown in this chapter, sometimes stakeholders prefer a different organisation for the pursuit of interests in a certain policy area, which results in an issue migration from one organisation to the other. The chapter de-centres the EU and includes the Arctic Council as a venue of alternative regional cooperation on demand. It employs an interpretive analysis based on the Arctic Strategy documents and statements of the EU, its member states, EU's close affiliates and of the Sami Council. Through a comparative assessment of issue areas, the chapter demonstrates how different preferences of stakeholders relate to DI/DD in the Arctic region, where multiple organisations are available for the pursuit of interests in different policy areas.