ABSTRACT
This chapter integrates and concludes the book Global Development of the Arctic: Cooperation for the Future. The chapter presents an analytical summary of all the chapters in this book. The chapters, each of them dealing with a specific sector of international cooperation in the Arctic, were reviewed in terms of identifying common features for a potential Arctic cooperation model. The findings were then contrasted to establish theoretical approaches to cooperation and a potentially new way of understanding cooperation was identified. This chapter offers a so-called Arctic self-reinforcing cooperation model based on common patterns of cooperation observed throughout the book chapters. Self-reinforcing cooperation can be found in various sectors: climate cooperation, maritime search and rescue, culture, higher education, environmental protection, security, and governance. The self-reinforcing model is in many ways based on the colocation and mutual dependence of the Arctic actors, but also on bottom-up initiatives. Such cooperation is motivated by the paradoxes to which the actors are exposed. Once big economic interests (e.g., extractive industries) come into the picture, cooperation develops in a different, nonself-reinforcing way.
