Arctic exceptionalism as institutionalised quarantine: a historical institutionalist reinterpretation of Arctic governance
This article reinterprets Arctic exceptionalism not as a natural feature of the region's security environment but as a product of "institutionalised quarantine"—a deliberate governance design that historically excluded military-security issues from the Arctic Council's mandate, explaining both the resilience of cooperation during past crises and the current post-2022 rupture as a crisis of legitimacy rather than the collapse of the institution itself.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
The Arctic has always been a place of contradictions. For decades, while the world's great powers maintained a tense military standoff across the frozen north, the eight nations bordering the region managed to build one of the most successful systems of cooperation in human history. They worked together on protecting the environment, sharing scientific data, and supporting Indigenous communities, even as their armies modernized and their nuclear submarines patrolled the same waters. This strange ability to keep peace while preparing for war was called "Arctic exceptionalism." Many experts believed this peace existed because the region was somehow special, or because the countries had successfully agreed to stop talking about security threats. But when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, this cooperation suddenly froze. The question that remained was whether the peace had ever been real, or if it had simply been a fragile illusion waiting to break.
A new study by Elif Gürdal Limon and Onur Limon offers a different answer. They argue that the peace was not a result of the region being special, nor was it a sign that the countries had stopped fearing each other. Instead, they propose that the peace was the result of a specific, deliberate rule created by the nations themselves. The researchers call this rule "institutionalised quarantine." Imagine a hospital where a patient with a highly contagious disease is kept in a separate, sealed room. The disease is not cured, and the patient is still sick, but the quarantine prevents the illness from spreading to the healthy patients in the next ward. In the Arctic, the "disease" was military rivalry, and the "healthy patients" were the civilian projects like science and environmental protection. The countries did not try to fix the rivalry; they simply built a wall around it, agreeing by a formal rule to never discuss military matters within their main regional council.
The researchers traced the history of this arrangement from its beginning in 1987 to the present day. They found that the idea to exclude military topics was not an accident or a gradual drift. It was a specific choice made during the negotiations that created the Arctic Council in 1996. The United States, which held significant influence, insisted that the new organization should have no power to discuss defense or security. This decision was written into the founding document as a footnote, a small but legally binding exclusion that kept the military sector completely separate from the civilian work. This was not a case of the countries agreeing to stop being enemies; the military competition continued to grow, with nuclear submarines and fighter jets remaining active throughout the decades. The countries simply agreed to keep those conversations happening in different rooms, outside the council.
For twenty-five years, this arrangement worked remarkably well. The study shows that the system survived two major crises that usually destroy international cooperation: the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. Even as tensions rose and sanctions were imposed, the Arctic Council kept functioning. The countries continued to sign agreements on search and rescue and oil spill response. The researchers explain that this happened because the "quarantine" was self-reinforcing. As the nations invested more time and money into their shared civilian projects, they built a strong habit of working together. They also actively policed the boundary, making sure that military discussions never slipped into the council's meetings. The system was stable not because the rivalry disappeared, but because everyone agreed to keep the rivalry in its designated place.
However, the study finds that this system collapsed in 2022, not because the rule changed, but because the agreement to follow it broke down. When Russia invaded Ukraine, seven of the eight Arctic nations decided they could no longer treat Russia as a legitimate partner in any shared project, even the civilian ones. They paused their participation in the council. Crucially, they did not change the official rules or delete the footnote that excluded military topics. The text of the agreement remained exactly the same. Yet, the cooperation stopped. The researchers describe this as "institutional drift." It is a situation where the formal rules are still on the books, but the shared understanding that made those rules work has vanished. The wall was still there, but no one was willing to stand on the right side of it anymore.
This finding challenges the way many people have understood the Arctic. Some experts believed the peace was real and had now been destroyed by the war. Others believed the peace was never real to begin with, arguing that the military rivalry was always the dominant force. The researchers argue that both views miss the point. The peace was real, but it was a specific kind of peace that depended entirely on a shared agreement to ignore the rivalry. It was a political construction, not a natural state of affairs. The study suggests that the Arctic Council did not fail because the countries started fighting; it failed because the countries stopped believing in the specific rule that kept the fighting separate from the cooperation.
The implications of this research extend beyond the frozen north. It shows that international organizations can survive for a long time even when the world around them is becoming more dangerous, as long as the members agree to keep certain topics off the table. But it also shows that such agreements are fragile. They rely on the continued willingness of all parties to respect the boundary. If one major player decides that the boundary is no longer valid, the entire system can collapse, even if the written rules are still in place. The study concludes that rebuilding cooperation in the Arctic will not be a matter of writing new rules or creating new organizations. It will require the difficult work of rebuilding the trust and shared understanding that made the original quarantine possible in the first place. Until the nations are willing to accept each other as partners again, the rules will remain on the page, but the cooperation will remain frozen.
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