We are pleased to announce that on 1 March 2024, Aslak Veierud Busch successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “In Pole Position? The Construction of Regions and the EU’s Role in the Arctic”.
The Brussels School of Governance would like to congratulate Dr. Busch on this wonderful achievement. Below you can read more about his PhD thesis.
Abstract
Regions are increasingly important arenas of international politics. But what is a region, and how is that defined? This thesis unpacks some ways in which regions come to frame international political interaction. Regions are constructed through both description and depiction, and the different words and images used to shape a region can become a source of political contention in its own right. But who is a part of the region, who is not, and who plays what role? What type of diplomatic culture and discourse emerges when referring to the region? The regional frame draws lines between insiders and outsiders, as well as appropriate and inappropriate ways of speaking and behaving, making space for actors to envisage and enact social roles. Regions, rather than given entities, are held in place by the shared reference points and social codes surrounding them.
This thesis explores the social construction of international regions and their role dynamics through four articles with a specific emphasis on the Arctic, as a fuzzily defined region that is undergoing fundamental political and geophysical transformation. The PhD comprises a collection of four articles, examining
1) contested ways of describing the Arctic,
2) ways to study digital visual discourses of the Arctic,
3) the EU’s argumentation for Arctic involvement, and
4) the EU’s bid for Arctic Council observer status.
These studies, taken together, provide an understanding Arctic politics and EU external action, but also speak wider to understand what the regional frame does to the dynamics of international political interaction. The Arctic, rather than a place like no other, seems to be an ideal spot to theorise about the way in which discourse and social interaction can give rise to new frames of political action.
