As the race for resources in distant parts of the planet gathers momentum, most discussion has centred on the potential for conflict, environmental destruction, and upheaval from climate change. This important book shifts the conversation about the Arctic and Antarctic from conflict to cooperation. A multidisciplinary roster of experts provides fresh views of the polar regions, focusing on diplomacy and the potential for cooperative international decision-making. Collectively the contributors illustrate the breadth of issues that complicate governance in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as parallels and differences between the politics of the two poles.
Rebecca Pincus is a postdoctoral associate at the University of Vermont, and the associate director of its Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security.
Saleem H. Ali is director and professor at the Center for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Australia.
"Multifaceted and comprehensive, this volume looks at the array of issues from many perspectives [...] a serious and scholarly contribution to the rapidly changing polar regions."
– Thomas E. Lovejoy, George Mason University
"Educators who strive to provide their students with a fundamental understanding of the challenges of governing distant Polar Regions would be well served to assign Pincus and Ali's overview as required reading."
– Walter Berbrick, Associate Professor and Director of the Arctic Regional Studies Group, U.S. Naval War College