ABSTRACT
The growing use of so-called smart city initiatives opens new areas for sustainable development in the Arctic, emphasizing dialogue formation between actors. However, understanding of the promise of smart city dialogue is mostly missing. This chapter investigates smart city initiatives in the Russian and Norwegian Arctic, revealing and comparing how the smart cities dialogue unfolds across governance actors. Referring to the dialogic literature, the authors analyze qualitative data summaries and related publications from three international research projects on smart cities in the Arctic. The findings demonstrate that smart city dialogue formation has so far faced many challenges. Particular attention in both countries should be paid to existing governance traditions and national/international players’ roles. Without intervention, there is a risk of smart city dialogue ending up a monologue of the dominant voices from outside the Arctic, challenging Arctic sustainability. Yet, in future projections, this chapter demonstrates that current developments present opportunities across the two countries for joint competence building, networking, and research.
