Non-State Actors in Arctic Council Governance

Assessments of the influence of non-governmental organisations on the work of the Arctic Council (AC) have remained very much a blind spot in research on contemporary Arctic politics. To address this gap, this chapter compares the roles and impact of the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Circumpolar Conservation Union in the work of two of the AC’s subsidiary bodies: the Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response Working Group and the related Task Force on Arctic Marine Oil Pollution Prevention. The study finds that non-state actors have been able to influence problem formulation, agenda-setting and policy formulation processes in these bodies, but that their impact may vary according to their internal structure, their different standing in the negotiations and their general willingness and capacity to participate.