Geopolitics, diplomacy, or idealistic research? Framing the research community in Ny-Ålesund

ABSTRACT

The former mining town of Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard, Norway has evolved into an international research community with over 20 research institutions from more than 10 countries. Although the Norwegian government has welcomed the increasing internationalisation of Ny-Ålesund, they also emphasise that all research activities on Svalbard are to be exclusively regulated by the Norwegian authorities, culminating in 2016 when the Norwegian government announced a firmer host role policy for the research community. Not all countries agree with this view, however. This dispute relates to the increased political interests in the region at large, with new resource possibilities as a key element. The Ny-Ålesund situation therefore makes an interesting case study of the relationship between research and geopolitics. Given that much of the scholarly discourse on Svalbard focuses on states’ interests and international relations, there is a risk that perspectives on the purpose of research in Ny-Ålesund that focus less on the geopolitical aspects are neglected. Drawing on Goffman’s concept of frame and fieldwork conducted during August – December 2022, this article explores different interpretations of the purpose of the research community in Ny-Ålesund. Specifically, the focus here is directed to the Norwegian government’s decision to enforce a firmer host role policy for Ny-Ålesund, which intensified the tensions between the various interests and perceptions related to the purpose of the research community.

KEYWORDS:

• Ny-Ålesund
• Svalbard
• Arctic
• framing
• polar research

Introduction

The Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard has been subject¹ to research and exploration for several centuries.² Today, the former mining town of Ny-Ålesund is an international research community with over 20 research institutions from more than 10 countries.³ With excellent location and infrastructure, it has become ‘an important platform for international scientific research on the Arctic, global climate, and climate change’.⁴

The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 put Svalbard under Norwegian sovereignty while also granting nationals to the contracting parties certain rights.⁵ Although the Norwegian government has welcomed the increasing internationalisation of Ny-Ålesund, they also emphasise that the Norwegian authorities regulate all research activities on Svalbard.⁶ However, not all treaty parties agree to this interpretation of the Svalbard Treaty concerning research.⁷ This dispute relates to the increased political interests in the region at large, with new resource possibilities as a key element.⁸ This makes the research community in Ny-Ålesund an interesting case of the relationship between research and geopolitics.

Recent studies suggest that the research community in Ny-Ålesund can be understood as a ‘geopolitical asset for Norway’ in consolidating its sovereignty as well as a tool for other states to signal their foothold in the Arctic region.⁹ Policy issues such as research policy for Ny-Ålesund is, however, often subject to divergent perceptions and problem definitions.¹⁰ Given that much of the scholarly discourse on Svalbard focuses on states’ interests and international relations,¹¹ there is a risk that perspectives on research in Ny-Ålesund focusing less on the geopolitical aspects are neglected. Moreover, studying how policy issues are interpreted differently is important because political actions are based on such understandings.¹²

Drawing on Goffman’s concept of frame,¹³ this article explores different interpretations of the purpose of the research community in Ny-Ålesund. Specifically, the focus here is directed to the Norwegian government’s decision to enforce a firmer host role policy for Ny-Ålesund. This political process provided an excellent opportunity to assess different, and to some extent, competing claims about the purpose of the research community in Ny-Ålesund. The article begins with an outline of the methods and analytic framework, including the concept of frame. Given that reflection on frames is inseparable from reflection on context,¹⁴ a section on the role of research in Svalbard and Ny-Ålesund is then provided. Following this, the frames of the research community in Ny-Ålesund, derived from the analysis of the data material, are presented, and discussed.

Methods and analytic framework

The focus of this article is the dispute related to and intensified by the political process whereby the Norwegian host role in the research community in Ny-Ålesund was strengthened. Short-term, multi-site fieldwork conducted during August – December 2022 provided the data for this study. The multi-site design enabled the researcher to ‘study through’ the dispute beyond the geographical boundaries.¹⁵ The research was located in several sites, including Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard and Tromsø and Oslo on the Norwegian mainland.

Multiple data sources contributed to the insights presented in this article, including 27 semi-structured interviews with people involved in the political process including government representatives, Norwegian and foreign research institutions, and key actors in the Ny-Ålesund community, such as Kings Bay and the Norwegian Polar Institute (originally named Norges Svalbard og Ishavs-undersøkelser – Norway’s Svalbard and Arctic Ocean Research Surveys, hereafter referred to as NPI). The interviews provided information on how these actors had contributed to and perceived the political process. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed. In addition, informal conversations were conducted with potential interviewees who declined the opportunity to participate in a formal interview. For the informal conversations, only written notes were taken, with consent from the participants. Although not cited, they were important in providing the researcher with a more comprehensive understanding of research policies for Svalbard. Further, relevant government documents contributed important background information and to contextualise the political process. Special attention was given to the latest Svalbard white paper and the research strategy for Ny-Ålesund.¹⁶

To add further depth and richness to the fieldwork, direct observation in Ny-Ålesund was conducted via joining a day trip to the community with a tourist company. Although only two hours were spent in the research community, the observations made the researcher better able to understand the interviewees statements and to ask them relevant questions.¹⁷ ‘Being there’, both in Longyearbyen and in Ny-Ålesund, further helped the researcher comprehend how the national policy action played out on the local stage, including how local actors viewed and responded to it.¹⁸ In addition, a hand-written research diary was kept throughout the fieldwork period. The recorded impressions and reflections guided the study and meant that the analysis was initiated in the field.¹⁹

Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data and identify patterns across the dataset in relation to the research question,²⁰ with the software programs NVivo and PowerPoint as useful tools to organise the data. The concept of the frame was employed to guide the analysis in exploring how the purpose of research in Ny-Ålesund is understood. Following Goffman, frames are generally understood as a ‘schemata of interpretation’ that answer the question ‘what is it that’s going on here?’²¹ The concept has been firmly established in studies of the political,²² for example in studies of social movements,²³ gender policies,²⁴ and policy-making in the EU.²⁵ In line with a critical approach to policy issue framing, this article assumes that frames are not politically neutral but rather entangled with actors’ interests and the policy process.²⁶ Therefore, actors may use frames strategically to promote their interests.²⁷ The frame concept was considered valuable to shed light on tensions between the various interests and perceptions related to the purpose of the research community in Ny-Ålesund.

While the researcher employed frame as a theoretical concept, the method of frame analysis was not used. However, the thematic analysis conducted in this study resembles that of frame analysis in several ways. First, the similarity between the definition of a theme and a frame, the outputs of the respective analyses, can be noted. Braun and Clarke define a theme as ‘a pattern of shared meaning organised around a central concept’.²⁸ Similarly, Gamson and Modigliani refer to a frame as ‘a central organising idea (…) for making sense of relevant events’.²⁹ Both terms are concerned with a central organising idea or concept. Second, frame analyses often focus on the problems and solutions associated with the frame. ³⁰ Similarly, the coding process conducted in this study employed the guiding questions ‘Why was it perceived as necessary to strengthen the host role?’, ‘Why was the host role given to the NPI?’ and ‘why did the change of the host role receive reactions?’ Third, policy frame analyses typically bring attention to the substance of the policy issue.³¹ Two more guiding questions in the coding process of this study contributed to obtaining this, namely ‘Why is research conducted in Ny-Ålesund?’ and ‘What is the host role about?’

Based on the analysis of the data material and inspired by the concept of frame, three themes were developed: 1) the idealistic frame, 2) the diplomatic frame, and 3) the geopolitical frame. The themes are summarised in Table 1 and presented in full later in the article. Because reflections on frames cannot be separated from reflections on context,³² the role of research in Svalbard and Ny-Ålesund is presented first.

Table 1. Summary of themes.

	The idealistic frame	The diplomatic frame	The geopolitical frame
What is the research community of Ny-Ålesund?	An arena for idealistic research	A diplomatic arena	A geopolitical arena
Why is research conducted in Ny-Ålesund?	To produce knowledge that can contribute to solve global challenges such as climate change	A mean for agenda-setting	To express presence on Svalbard and in the Arctic
What is the host role about?	Promoting, coordinating, and welcoming the researchers and the research activity	To welcome official delegations	Signalling that Ny-Ålesund and Svalbard is Norwegian
Why was it perceived as necessary to strengthen the host role?	The coordination and quality of the measurements had to be ensured	There was a need to caretake diplomatic custom	Foreign actors acted like Ny-Ålesund, and Svalbard was a no man’s land
Why was the host role given to the Norwegian Polar Institute?	Being at the forefront of polar issues, research, and knowledge, the NPI was best suited to coordinate the research activity	NPI was the institution with the necessary broad understanding of international issues and geopolitics	Clear signal that Ny-Ålesund and Svalbard is Norwegian

The role of research in Svalbard and Ny-Ålesund

Research and exploration of, and on, Svalbard have occurred ever since Willem Barentz discovered the archipelago in 1596. ³³ By the 1800s, ‘the century of polar research’, research had taken a more dominant part in the overall activity on Svalbard.³⁴ This coincided with more substantial economic interests in the region related to the discovery of minerals. The expeditions also provided the basis for the political ambitions of smaller states during European expansionism.³⁵ At the beginning of the 1900s, several nations were conducting research on Svalbard, of which Norway had taken a leading position.³⁶ Although this contributed to ensuring Norwegian sovereignty on Svalbard,³⁷ other factors were more critical. This included Norway’s efforts as a neutral ally during World War I and the absence of Russia and Germany in the final negotiations.³⁸

The negotiations resulted in the Treaty Concerning the Archipelago of Spitsbergen of 1920 (the Svalbard Treaty). While the Treaty recognised Norway’s ‘full and absolute’ sovereignty over Svalbard, it also granted the nationals to the contracting parties rights to fish, hunt and conduct commercial operations ‘on a footing of absolute equality’.³⁹ Research is not mentioned in this regard, but the Treaty states that ‘conventions shall also be concluded laying down the conditions under which scientific investigations may be conducted in the said territories’.⁴⁰ An agreement of this sort has never been concluded, however.

The Norwegian government, therefore, asserts that it is up to the Norwegian authorities to regulate research activity on Svalbard.⁴¹ It further claims that nationals of the parties to the Treaty have neither a right nor equal right to conduct research activities in the archipelago.⁴² However, both legal scholars and states (most notably China) have argued against this interpretation of the Treaty, and instead claim that Norway should not exclusively govern research on Svalbard.⁴³ This disagreement falls into the wider dispute between Norway and the contracting parties on the interpretation of the Svalbard Treaty. A significant issue in this regard is the question of the geographical scope of the Treaty, which may have implications for the rights to explore and exploit marine resources, including fisheries and petroleum.⁴⁴

Shortly after Svalbard became a part of the kingdom of Norway, the NPI was founded. The NPI is the main institution for Norwegian Svalbard research and a government directorate that advises the central Norwegian administration on scientific and strategic matters.⁴⁵ The Institute has a major role in the research community of Ny-Ålesund, where it has had a permanent position since 1968.⁴⁶

Ny-Ålesund was established in 1917 as the world’s northernmost mining town by the Norwegian mining company Kings Bay Kull Company (Kings Bay).⁴⁷ Since then, the town has been a base for tourism, fishery and – most famously – the starting point for the race to the North Pole.⁴⁸ The mining came to a dramatic end in 1962 when an explosion killed 21 workers. As a result, the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) decided to shut down the mining activity and the town was vacated. For some time, however, Ny-Ålesund had attracted international researchers because of its ice-free dock, infrastructure, and well-suited location to study Arctic phenomena.⁴⁹ Despite the mining accident, the Norwegian government first hesitated to invest in research infrastructure, as this was considered both practically difficult and expensive.⁵⁰

A shift came when the European Space Research Organisation Telemetry station opened in 1967 (despite the Soviet’s protest that the station could be used for military purposes and thus breach the Svalbard Treaty). The station was crucial to transforming Ny-Ålesund into an international research town, requiring an infrastructure escalation and year-round activity.⁵¹ The latter was a point of concern for the Norwegian government when the ESRO project ended in 1974.⁵² The NPI and Kings Bay provided the year-round activity, as the Institute was granted funding to establish a permanent research station and Kings Bay was given the mandate to maintain infrastructure.⁵³

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, several foreign research stations were established in Ny-Ålesund. Today, the community hosts over 20 research institutions from more than 10 countries,⁵⁴ and may rightfully be described as ‘home to extensive International collaboration’.⁵⁵ Research and monitoring activities are organised within the four flagship programmes: atmosphere; glaciology; Kongsfjorden system; and terrestrial ecosystems.⁵⁶ The location makes the research station particularly suited for observing climate change effects and environmental changes, and the data contributes to international agreements and conventions.⁵⁷ The research station has thus developed into ‘an important platform for scientific research on the Arctic, global climate, and climate change’.⁵⁸

While the Norwegian government has welcomed the increasing internationalisation of Ny-Ålesund, they have also seen it as necessary to emphasise that the research activities are subjected to Norwegian management.⁵⁹ For the first time, the dualism concerning foreign research was explicit in the Report to the Storting on Svalbard of 1993. While the need for international cooperation was acknowledged, it was also highlighted that Norway should have a host role, considering its sovereign status.⁶⁰ Although this dualism was repeated in the following white papers on Svalbard, the foreign research stations were allowed a high level of independence.⁶¹

In the most recent Svalbard white paper, the Norwegian government announced a firmer host role policy, which was to be carried out by the NPI.⁶² Several management tasks were moved from Kings Bay to the NPI. As the NPI is a government directorate, the responsibility for the research management in Ny-Ålesund was transferred to an institution directly linked to the Norwegian government.⁶³ The content of the host role was further clarified in the research strategy for Ny-Ålesund from 2019, developed by The Research Council of Norway in line with the government’s guidelines and principles for research in Svalbard.⁶⁴ According to the strategy, the NPI was intended to be ‘the point of contact in Ny-Ålesund for scientific research and associated activities’.⁶⁵ The institute would have ‘the overall on-site responsibility for ensuring coordination’ and ‘planning of official visits’ and control that the research projects in Ny-Ålesund complied with the strategy.⁶⁶

The historical account of the role of research in Svalbard and Ny-Ålesund testifies to a dilemma for the Norwegian government between the objective of contributing to high-quality polar research and enforcing Norwegian sovereignty on Svalbard.⁶⁷ Recent studies especially highlight how the research community in Ny-Ålesund can be used as a ‘geopolitical asset’ by Norway and foreign states.⁶⁸ As explained by Paglia, when foreign institutions sign long-term leases on research stations, they recognise the authority of Norway in Ny-Ålesund.⁶⁹ In this way, ‘the relatively stable development of Ny-Ålesund as a Norwegian-controlled international research base represents an important anchor for Norway’s sovereignty over Svalbard’.⁷⁰ The research community represents a tool for other states to signal their foothold in the Arctic region.⁷¹ As argued by Pedersen, ‘national presence in the region is a ticket to the venues of Arctic power and influence’, and the research facilities in Ny-Ålesund offer such a presence.⁷² This may provide a stake in the new resource opportunities as the sea-ice declines.⁷³

Against this backdrop and drawing on Goffman’s concept of frame, this article, therefore, explores different interpretations of the purpose of the research community in Ny-Ålesund.The frames based on the analysis of the data material are presented in the following order: 1) the idealistic frame, 2) the diplomatic frame, and 3) the geopolitical frame.

The idealistic frame: Ny-Ålesund as an arena for idealistic research

Locals and national authorities describe Ny-Ålesund as ‘an unbelievably exciting location for research’ where ‘world-class research takes place’. For researchers, ‘two months in Ny-Ålesund, if you like science, it is the place to be’. As expressed by one Kings Bay employee: ‘They are primarily here to do research’.

One of the objectives of the research community in Ny-Ålesund is to produce knowledge that can contribute to solving global challenges, most notably climate change. As such, some perceive it as ‘one of the most important research stations in the world’, as stated by an interviewed government representative. The interviewee did not know of any other place ‘so centrally located for the biggest challenges we face’. Ny-Ålesund is used as a hotspot on the globe to understand it better, and as such the activity going on there is idealistic. ‘It is actually more idealistic’, an NPI representative asserted, ‘because it is about saving our common future’.

Framed in this way, the host role in Ny-Ålesund may be perceived to be about promoting, coordinating, and welcoming the researchers and research activity there. As the host, the NPI takes care of its own researchers when they arrive in Ny-Ålesund and those not affiliated with any of the other stations located there. According to the NPI themselves, an important part of the job is to ‘try to contribute to coordinate the activity in Ny-Ålesund, because there are several actors there’. The change in the host role came because the coordination and the quality of the research had to be ensured. As explained by a government representative;

… this is about making the best possible use of this place, meaning that those of you [researchers] who are here cooperate and share and work together, and do not sit in each of your houses and do the same thing in parallel. (…) that is what is behind the idea here, simply better utilisation of the resources.

As described by an NPI representative, Ny-Ålesund may be perceived as a ‘limited resource’: ‘What can only be done here or can best be done here must be done here. But what can just as well be done elsewhere, should be done elsewhere, based on environmental considerations’. Because of this, increasing research activity in Ny-Ålesund is not an objective. As a Kings Bay employee expressed, ‘we are not to grow infinitely, and there should not be thousands of researchers here at the same time. You have to keep it at a level that doesn’t have such a large environmental footprint’. The ability to take relatively undisturbed measurements may also be the rationale for why social science is not permitted in Ny-Ålesund. ‘If you had opened up for more social science research with us, more people would have come’, one Kings Bay employee explained. ‘You don’t want that. It has to do with preserving the property as a clean and pollution-free research station’. An NPI representative concurred with this statement:

Social science issues are important, but there are perhaps better places to study them than exactly in Ny-Ålesund. It [Ny-Ålesund] is a limited resource, and the Norwegian authorities have chosen to say that Ny-Ålesund is unique from a natural science perspective and perhaps not so unique from a social science perspective.

When the Norwegian government decided to enforce a firmer host role policy for Ny-Ålesund, it was argued that it aimed to ‘achieve higher quality, more cooperation, transparency and sharing, and better utilisation of resources across institutional and national boundaries’.⁷⁴ The official key rationale for why the NPI was seen as the best institution to coordinate research activity in Ny-Ålesund was that ‘they are the ones who are at the forefront of polar issues, of research and knowledge’, as expressed by a government representative. Because the NPI were doing research themselves, they would be better suited to manage the research activity. According to another government representative, this would provide ‘better management, closer to the research interest’. The interviewee meant that it was only natural that the NPI would have a role in that, to ensure ‘better administration, closer to the users and the topics there’. A Kings Bay employee seemed to agree with this; ‘Kings Bay has no apparatus, no researcher, who can keep control of the research. It is more the NPI that has that. So maybe you move the responsibility to a place that has more expertise in it’. In the interviewee’s understanding, placing the host role with the NPI meant that it was located somewhere with more control and knowledge of research. A representative from the NPI added that it also may have had something to do with the commercial character of Kings Bay:

If I try to be very objective and assess it, I think that maybe it was a clever solution because Kings Bay is an operating company. They do not have research expertise, and it may not be appropriate for a company that run property to build it up. While the NPI is a knowledge provider.

Placing the host role with the NPI did however receive adverse reactions from the research community. Some perceived the changed structure with an emphasis on Ny-Ålesund as one Norwegian research station as a threat to the international character of the community. One foreign researcher saw this as one of the big assets with Ny-Ålesund: ‘I think, for Ny-Ålesund it is important to be called international – because that is what makes it unique’. Downplaying the international aspect would make Ny-Ålesund less special and perhaps less interesting for foreign researchers to be part of. It could also make getting funding from the home research funding institutions more difficult. ‘The station set-up is actually the chicken with the golden egg. Not only because of the interaction, but also because of the possibility to get money from the home country’, the foreign researcher explained.

Further, the international researchers in Ny-Ålesund strongly opposed the limitations on research that the Norwegian government initiated, including the strict regulation of social science research. As stated by one foreign researcher, “It just blew my mind that the research council of Norway officially put their name behind a piece that said, ‘we block that part of research’. The interviewee simply did not buy the argument that the limitations to social science research were put up because of environmental considerations: ‘The idea was that the environmental footprint would be too big … I can tell you, social scientists do not have a big footprint. I have a big footprint, as a biologist. I catch birds, I disturb nests and so on’..

One of the most vocal critics of the austerity was the Chinese, who previous to the host role changes were preparing a research project on geopolitics in Ny-Ålesund. A Kings Bay employee had realised that the Chinese researchers disapproved the changes:

I understood from the Chinese scientists that they did not like the NPI overseeing their work. As far as I know … they didn’t like being watched over and being told what they could and couldn’t research. They believe that it is quite free, that the Svalbard Treaty says that they can come here and do research on whatever they want.

In sum, as noted by an NPI representative, the international researchers felt that this limitation was ‘an inappropriate interference with the academic freedom’. This resonates well with an observation made by a Longyearbyen local politician: ‘After all, academia is by its very nature free and international. That may not fit so well with Norwegian Svalbard policy’.

The diplomatic frame: Ny-Ålesund as a diplomatic arena

Contrary to the idealistic framing, Ny-Ålesund is not all about research. As articulated by an NPI interviewees, a key aspect of the NPI’s host role is ‘to welcome official delegations, whether they are Norwegian or foreign’. In practice, this entails initial communication with whoever wants to visit, and coordination with the Norwegian government to ensure that someone at the same political level welcomes them. In addition, coordination with Kings Bay is initiated to handle practical considerations, such as transportation and accommodation.

As explained by a government representative, receiving VIP visitors in Ny-Ålesund is important for Norway because of its diplomatic possibilities:

It is a great victory for Norway to get John McCain or Hillary Clinton to Svalbard. That is important. Because it is diplomatic, this builds relationships. Potentially, one would build relationships with the future president of the United States. It is important for Norway. It is important for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to build contacts.

These visits represent an important opportunity for the Norwegian government to set the agenda in international politics. Because Ny-Ålesund is such an exotic place, it is relatively easy to get key figures in international affairs to visit. Once there, the Norwegian government can bring attention to important issues. One government representative put it this way:

It is a place where it is easy to bring in foreign actors, and then you can also set a political agenda, because it is such an exciting and unique environment that also has something professional to contribute with. So, in that sense, it is a way to draw very fine visitors. So, it’s a nice part of the effort in being there, that you can make that happen and bring attention to things that are important to Norway.

An NPI representative reiterated this message:

Norway has brought attention to something that is incredibly important in relation to the climate but have also had the opportunity to promote the Norwegian agenda and become central in the big international diplomacy and policymaking in key areas: the Arctic, climate, industry, transport, energy, fisheries. So, it has been an incredibly effective way to influence and gain influence.

In this perspective, Ny-Ålesund is about getting a seat at the Arctic table. But it is not simply geopolitical issues that matter, but a broader range of political topics including climate, industry, and energy. The visits are also possibilities for the research actors, most notably the NPI, to influence the research policy. An NPI representative highlighted this aspect:

So, it is mostly the case that those who come here on official visits are people who sit in positions where they help to set the conditions for what is to be worked with and spent money on in the coming years. The research cake is only so big, and it is someone who decides how big a piece of the cake should be earmarked for Svalbard and climate research and Ny-Ålesund. Gaining an understanding of the importance of climate research here and its consistency, being in a place for a long time even if it is expensive, that is important.

Thus, as a diplomatic arena, Ny-Ålesund becomes a means for agenda-setting both for the Norwegian government and the NPI, in international and research politics, respectively. In this perspective, the change in the host role was needed because Norway struggled to caretake the diplomatic custom related to the VIP visits and the associated agenda-setting possibilities. In the years before the host role change, there had been several poorly coordinated visits, in which the Norwegian government could not accompany the visitor with a Norwegian government representative on the same level. As witnessed by a key person in Ny-Ålesund research politics at the time:

… there were several examples of politicians from other countries arriving at short notice who wanted to visit Ny-Ålesund. (…) Suddenly you learn that a minister is coming from one country or another, and then you were unable to find a minister from the Norwegian side. Then a German or French minister came, and then at most a state secretary came, sometimes it was actually someone from the civil service who was sort of the parallel, which is not really parallell in this diplomatic landscape. So, we had quite a few unfortunate episodes like that (…) There were quite a few examples of Norway not being able to be the good host it should be when you have that type of visits.

As explained by an NPI representative, this parallelism in bilateral meetings and delegations is key to diplomatic custom: ‘It looks very bad if one party, especially the host, is at one or several levels below. It will be perceived as the presence is not appreciated to a large enough extent’. In addition, a good host must understand the political landscape Ny-Ålesund and its visitors are a part of. The NPI would be better suited for this task than Kings Bay, an NPI representative stated, because

… one runs infrastructure – hotel operations, flights and so on – and that the other is responsible for research, but [is] also the institution that has a broad understanding of international issues and geopolitics. (…) It is not enough to know only research and infrastructure; you must have comprehensive competence when you meet decision-makers who have many thoughts in their heads at the same time. It will only become more important as I perceive the landscape now, with new and more pronounced actors in Svalbard.

The geopolitical frame: Ny-Ålesund as a geopolitical arena

As several interviewees acknowledged, however, ‘polar research is big politics’ and ‘Ny-Ålesund is a piece in that’. The research community of Ny-Ålesund is thus also perceived as an arena for geopolitics. In this perspective, the purpose of conducting research here is to express presence on Svalbard and, on a more general level, in the Arctic. Interviewed representatives of the Norwegian government concurred that maintaining presence was an important part of the research policy for Svalbard. ‘It has become an important part of Svalbard’s policy to have that research activity, also as a presence’, one of them stated. ‘We were concerned with strengthening the research presence’, another government representative said. An interviewed Kings Bay employee was highly aware of the role the company played in Norwegian Svalbard politics: ‘It [Kings Bay] is a tool for exercising Svalbard politics. (…) The most important thing is presence, to produce presence’. As one interviewees put it: ‘If you are going to assert your sovereignty over an area, there must be someone there’. The research community in Ny-Ålesund provides a presence for Norway, substantiating the Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard.

Foreign states may use the research community to express presence as well. As noted by a government representative, being present and engaging in research activity is part of the Arctic strategies for several of the countries represented in Ny-Ålesund. The aim is to ‘be a player in the Arctic’ and ‘an actor who develops policies and influences policies’, interviewees from the NPI stated. An interviewed Longyearbyen local politician put it more clearly: ‘Ultimately, it is an issue concerning power over resources’. In this perspective, conducting research activities in Ny-Ålesund is seen as a ticket to the Arctic table, where the fate of soon-available marine resources is discussed. In this context ‘the scientists can be used as pieces in a game’, as noted by an NPI representative.

The Norwegian government’s decision to strengthen the host role in Ny-Ålesund can be seen as a response to foreign researchers and their respective states acting like the locality was a no man’s land. As expressed by one of the key persons in this political process, ‘One probably experienced that foreign research institutions had perceived Ny-Ålesund as a place without particularly clear rules of the game’. The interviewee also stated that ‘the individual researchers – I won’t say they were in “no man’s land” - but there was something that moved in the direction of being unclear’.

One of the factors that may have contributed to such an impression was the national symbols connected to the foreign research stations and scientists. China presents the clearest expression of foreign presence in Ny-Ålesund. Two solid stone lions guard their research station, towards which the Norwegian government have somewhat ambivalent feelings. ‘They hadn’t come up now, that’s for sure. Not in my time’, a Kings Bay employee firmly stated. This attitude towards the lions must be seen in relation to what the Norwegian government perceived them to express, as put by one of the interviewed government representatives:

It is a sign that China is in the Arctic. They probably weigh 500 kilos each, and there were 500 million Chinese TV viewers at the opening, I’ve been told. It was a very important matter for China. It is very symbolic, and really expresses much more geopolitics than research.

In other words, the Chinese stone lions are taken as a symbol of China’s assertiveness in becoming a player in Arctic politics. Before the new host role policy, Ny-Ålesund consisted of individual research stations. ‘Now, Ny-Ålesund is promoted as one: Ny-Ålesund research station’, one Norwegian research actor explained. Moreover, according to an interviewees close to the political decisions concerning Ny-Ålesund, the Norwegian perspective was that ‘this is a Norwegian research station, with institutions from different countries, but it is not different countries that are in Ny-Ålesund, it is institutions’. For the Norwegian government, it was important to downplay the national characteristics of the research institutions represented in the community and highlight the ‘Norwegian-ness’ of it. An important rationale for strengthening the host role was that ‘there was a dire need from the Norwegian side to make it clear that this is actually Norwegian’, according to an NPI interviewees. As stated by a government representative, one wanted to be ‘very clear that Svalbard is Norway’:

There can be no doubt about that, not even in Ny-Ålesund where you have many countries that are interested in conducting research activities. That is good, but it must be within an administration and a set of regulations that is Norwegian. That’s what this reorganisation does, it makes it clearer.

Other government representatives repeated this argument. ‘I believe that it is fundamentally important that, through the many small steps, we ensure that Norwegian sovereignty is Norwegian sovereignty’, one of them stated, ‘and that we have control, within the framework of the Svalbard Treaty’. ‘We must ensure that no one is in doubt about what applies, and that Norwegian rules and interests govern everything we do’, a third government representative said.

Conclusion

The purpose of the Ny-Ålesund research community can be understood to be 1) to produce knowledge that can contribute solving global challenges such as climate change, 2) to set the agenda in international and research politics, and 3) to provide presence on Svalbard and in the Arctic. When the Norwegian government decided to enforce a firmer host role policy for Ny-Ålesund, it was argued that this would contribute to higher research quality. The policy change was thus framed in line with the idealistic frame. Based on the data analysis, however, a key concern for the Norwegian government was ensuring that Ny-Ålesund continued to substantiate the Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard. Framing the policy change in terms of idealistic research aims can therefore be perceived as a strategy to achieve this while avoiding an open discussion about sovereignty, research, and the Svalbard Treaty at the same time. In this way, the Norwegian government capitalised on the idealistic frame to promote its geopolitical interests. However, this strategy only worked to some extent. As the response to the host role policy change from the research actors shows, there is an evident dualism between the ‘free and international’ nature of research and the Norwegian government’s interests in presenting Ny-Ålesund as something distinctively and indisputably Norwegian.

In conclusion, this article has shown that while there are several interpretations or frames of the purpose of the research community in Ny-Ålesund, the Norwegian government’s primary concern is to maintain Ny-Ålesund as a tool to substantiate Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard. This aligns with the critical geography and geopolitics literature, which has emphasised the relationship between scientific activities and sovereignty claims in the polar regions.⁷⁵ To achieve their geopolitical aim while at the same time trying to avoid opening up a debate around the interpretation of the Svalbard Treaty, the Norwegian government frames Ny-Ålesund as an arena for high-quality research. For many of those carrying out the research activities in Ny-Ålesund, however, the community is not first and foremost a geopolitical tool, but rather a place where important research and diplomatic meetings can happen. These perspectives could positively influence Norway’s research policy for Ny-Ålesund as well as scholarly discourse.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge Johans T. Sandvin and Grete K. Hovelsrud, both Professors at Nord University, Faculty of Social Sciences, for critically reviewing the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Research Council of Norway under the Svalbard Science Forum Arctic Field Grant [Grant number 333203].

Notes

¹ Grydehøj, “Svalbard: International Relations in an Exceptionally International Territory.” 267–82.

² Goffman, Frame Analysis 1–157.

³ Ny-Ålesund Research Station Norway, “Key Institutions and Forums for Ny-Ålesund Research,” https://nyalesundresearch.no/about-us/key-institutions-and-forums-for-ny-alesund-research/.

⁴ Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard. Meld. St. 32 (2015–2016) Report to the Storting (White Paper) (2016), 71.

⁵ Treaty, “Treaty Concerning the Archipelago of Spitsbergen, Signed at Paris, February 9, 192,”, 7–19.

⁶ Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard, 22.

⁷ Molenaar, “A Response to ‘the Politics of Research Presence in Svalbard’ by Torbjørn Pedersen,”, 427–32; and Pedersen, “The Politics of Research Presence in Svalbard,”, 413–26.

⁸ Andreas Østhagen and Andreas Raspotnik, “Crab! How a Dispute over Snow Crab Became a Diplomatic Headache between Norway,” 58–64; and Bjørn P. Kaltenborn, Willy Østreng, and Grete K. Hovelsrud, “Change Will Be the Constant: Future Environmental Policy and Governance Challenges in Svalbard,” 25–45.

⁹ Eric Paglia, “A Higher Level of Civilisation? The Transformation of Ny-Ålesund from Arctic Coalmining Settlement in Svalbard to Global Environmental Knowledge Center at 79° North,” 1–13; Ebru Caymaz, Y. Barbaros Büyüksağnak, and Burcu Özsoy, “Arctic Science Diplomacy of Norway: A Case Study of Svalbard,” 1–7; and Pedersen, The Politics of Research Presence, 3.

¹⁰ Falk Daviter, “Policy Framing in the European Union,” 654–66; Conny Roggeband and Mieke Verloo, “Dutch Women Are Liberated, Migrant Women Are a Problem: The Evolution of Policy Frames on Gender and Migration in the Netherlands, 1995–2005,” 271–88; and Jörg Matthes, ‘Framing Politics: An Integrative Approach,” 247–59.

¹¹ Grydehøj, Svalbard, 268.

¹² Sarah Kaplan, “Framing Contests: Strategy Making Under Uncertainty,” 729–52; and Martin Rein and Donald Schön, “Reframing Policy Discourse,” 145–66.

¹³ Goffman, Frame Analysis, 8–21.

¹⁴ Rein and Schön, Reframing Policy Discourse, 166.

¹⁵ Roderick A. W. Rhodes, “What Is Decentred Analysis?,” 1–32; Christian Lo, When Politics Meets Bureaucracy. 30; and George E. Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography,” 95–117.

¹⁶ Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard, 1–118; and Research Council of Norway, Ny-Ålesund Research Station: Research Strategy, 1–33.

¹⁷ Harvey R. Bernard, Research Methods in Anthropology. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 1–803; Daniel Tope et al., “The Benefits of Being There: Evidence from the Literature on Work,” 470–93; and Lo, When Politics Meets Bureaucracy, 1–194.

¹⁸ Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Brian T. Connor, “The Ethnos in the Polis: Political Ethnography as a Mode of Inquiry,” 139–55.

¹⁹ Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Lina L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, 1–289; Bernard, Research Methods in Anthropology, 398; John Boswell, Jack Corbett, and Roderick A. W. Rhodes, “Fieldwork”, 72–94; and Julia Phillippi and Jana Lauderdale, “A Guide to Field Notes for Qualitative Research: Context and Conversation,” 381–88.

²⁰ Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology,” 77–101; Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, ‘(Mis)conceptualising Themes, Thematic Analysis, and Other Problems with Fugard and Potts’ (2015) Sample-Size Tool for Thematic Analysis’, 739–43; Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, ‘Reflecting on Reflexive Thematic Analysis’, 589–97; Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, ‘Conceptual and Design Thinking for Thematic Analysis’, 3–26; Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, ‘One Size Fits All? What Counts as Quality Practice in (Reflexive) Thematic Analysis?’ 328–52; and Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, 8–21.

²¹ Goffman, Frame Analysis, 8–21.

²² Rein and Schön, “Reframing Policy Discourse,” 145–65; and Merlijn Van Hulst and Dvora Yanow, “From Policy ‘Frames’ to ‘Framing’: Theorizing a More Dynamic, Political Approach,” 92–112.

²³ Benford, “Frame Disputes,” 667–701; and Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow, ‘Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment’, 611–39.

²⁴ Mieke Verloo, “Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Europe: A Critical Frame Analysis Approach,” 11–34.

²⁵ Daviter, Policy Framing, 654–66.

²⁶ Tebeje Molla and Andrea Nolan, “The Problem of Inequality in Australia’s Early Childhood Education and Care Sector: A Policy Frame Analysis,” 322–39.

²⁷ Goffman, Frame Analysis,” 103; Mitchel Y. Abolafia, “Framing Moves: Interpretive Politics at the Federal Reserve,” 349–70; Kaplan, “Framing Contests,” 730; Roggeband and Verloo, ‘Policy Frames on Gender and Migration’, 273; and Elena Baracani and Virginia Sarotto, “The European Commission’s Role in EU – Turkey Migration: Political Leadership Through Strategic Framing,” 572–99.

²⁸ Braun and Clarke, Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide, 77.

²⁹ William A. Gamson and Andre Modigliani, “Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach,” 1–37.

³⁰ Emma Björnehed and Josefina Erikson, “Making the Most of the Frame: Developing the Analytical Potential of Frame Analysis,” 109–26.

³¹ Van Hulst and Yanow, From Policy “Frames” to “Framing”’, 102.

³² Rein and Schön, Reframing Policy Discourse, 164.

³³ Thor B. Arlov, Svalbards historie [The History of Svalbard] (Trondheim: Tapir akademisk forlag, 2019), 1–467.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Svalbard Treaty, “Treaty Concerning the Archipelago of Spitsbergen,” article 3.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard, 22.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ Molenaar, “A Response’, 431; and Pedersen, ‘The Politics of Research Presence,” 8–10.

⁴⁴ Østhagen and Raspotnik, ‘Crab!’, 58–60.

⁴⁵ Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard, 77.

⁴⁶ Arild Moe, “Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard [Research Policy on Svalbard],”, 109–34.

⁴⁷ Per-Kyrre Reymert, Ny-Ålesund, 1–37.

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Moe, Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard, 113.

⁵¹ Reymert, Ny-Ålesund, 28–9; and Moe, Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard, 113.

⁵² Moe, Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard, 114.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Ny-Ålesund Research Station Norway, ‘Key Institutions and Forums’.

⁵⁵ Ny-Ålesund Research Station Norway, ‘Research, Monitoring and Flagships’, https://nyalesundresearch.no/research-and-monitoring/.

⁵⁶ Research Council of Norway, Ny-Ålesund Research Station, 17.

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard, 71.

⁵⁹ Moe, “Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard,” 119–27.

⁶⁰ Ibid.

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard, 78–81.

⁶³ Moe, Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard, 125.

⁶⁴ Research Council of Norway, Ny-Ålesund Research Station, 1–33.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 11.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 11–15.

⁶⁷ Moe, Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard, 119.

⁶⁸ Paglia, “A Higher Level of Civilisation?,” 12; Caymaz, Büyüksağnak, and Özsoy, Arctic Science Diplomacy of Norway, 1–7; and Pedersen, The Politics of Research Presence, 413–426.

⁶⁹ Paglia, A Higher Level of Civilisation?, 3.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 11; also see Peder Roberts and Eric Paglia, ‘Science as National Belonging: The Construction of Svalbard as a Norwegian Space,” 894–911.

⁷¹ Pedersen, The Politics of Research Presence, 3; Caymaz, Büyüksağnak, and Özsoy, Arctic Science Diplomacy of Norway’, 3–5; Paglia, ‘A Higher Level of Civilisation?’, 1; Moe, ‘Forskningspolitikk på Svalbard’, 132; Grydehøj, ‘Svalbard’; and Roberts and Paglia, ‘Science as National Belonging’, 273.

⁷² Pedersen, The Politics of Research Presence, 3.

⁷³ Kaltenborn, Østreng, and Hovelsrud, Change Will Be the Constant, 31–32.

⁷⁴ Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Svalbard, 78.

⁷⁵ Klaus Dodds, “Icy Geopolitics,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26, no. 1 (2008): 1–6; Jeppe Strandsbjerg, “Cartopolitics, Geopolitics and Boundaries in the Arctic,” Geopolitics 17, no. 4 (2012): 818–42; Simon Naylor, Katrina Dean, and Martin Siegert, “The IGY and the Ice Sheet: Surveying Antarctica,” Journal of Historical Geography 34, no. 4 (2008): 574–95; Simone Turchetti et al., “On Thick Ice: Scientific Internationalism and Antarctic Affairs, 1957–1980,” History and Technology 24, no. 4 (2008): 351–76; Christy Collis and Klaus Dodds, “assault on the Unknown: The Historical and Political Geographies of the International Geophysical Year (1957–8),” Journal of Historical Geography 34, no. 4 (2008): 555–73; Katrina Dean et al., “Science, Geopolitics and the Governance of Antarctica,” Nature Geoscience 1, no. 3 (2008): 143–45; Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall, “Scrambling for the Extraordinary,” in The Scramble for the Poles. The Geopolitics of the Arctic and Antarctic, ed. Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), 1–30; and Richard C. Powell and Klaus Dodds, “Polar Geopolitics,” in Polar Geopolitics? Knowledges, Resources and Legal Regimes, ed. Richard C. Powell and Klaus Dodds (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2014), 3–18.