Norway-Russia disaster diplomacy for Svalbard

Abstract The Arctic is frequently framed as a region of disaster and conflict, as well as of opportunity and cooperation. Disaster diplomacy is one approach for examining how dealing with disasters might or might not affect conflict and cooperation, yet little work on Arctic disaster diplomacy has been completed, especially regarding specific bilateral relations. This paper contributes to filling in this gap by focusing on the post-USSR era to provide the first examination of the prospects and relevance of Norway-Russia disaster-related interaction for the Svalbard archipelago. As a discussion paper focusing on one case study, Norway-Russia disaster diplomacy is analysed in the context of S…