Event Date: September 8, 2025 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: FSS 4004, 120 University Private, University of Ottawa

Presented by CIPS and International Theory Network (ITN)

In December 1911, a Norwegian flag was planted on the South Pole, by the Norwegian scientist and explorer Roald Amundsen. A century later, in August 2007, a Russian flag was planted on the North Pole seabed by two Russian mini submarines. In the winter of 2024-25, US president-elect Donald Trump returned to a topic from his first presidency and suggested that the United States should take over Greenland. All three events took place in competitive settings, and they garnered significant global attention. Why did these events create global attention, and were there any parallels across time, beyond geographical commonalities? Why, in spite of the inhospitality of the regions in question, do states desire pole possessions?

There is no lack of geostrategic or geoeconomic explanations for the desire for pole possessions. The aim of this talk is nevertheless to add a dimension which is missing from most current accounts of polar politics, and in the process providing an alternative framing of the phenomenon. What is missing from existing accounts, we suggest, are the structuring effects of domestic and international politics of status competition, how states see themselves, how they desire others to see them and how others respond to these desires. Accordingly, we argue that status-competition can be understood as a form of meta-structuring of polar politics over the last century and a half. We substantiate this claim through discussions of polar explorations, pole possessions and polar science, all configuring around polar achievements as a sign of civilisational prowess.

Speakers:

Halvard Leira is Research Director and Research Professor at NUPI (the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs). He has published extensively in English and Norwegian on international political thought, conceptual history, historiography, foreign policy, diplomacy, privateering and status more often than not with an emphasis on historical international relations. He is currently Associate Editor of European Journal of International Relations and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Benjamin de Carvalho is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo. He holds his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and has also studied at the New School for Social Research (New York) and the University of Oslo. His main work is in the intersection between history, sociology and IR, and he has focused on questions of state formation, nationalism, religion and sovereignty. He has also published on status in international relations, as well as peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Recent publications include The Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations (co-edited with Leira and Costa Lopez) and The Sea and International Relations (co-edited with Leira).

Chair:

Srdjan Vucetic is a Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. His research interests involve American and Canadian foreign and defence policy and international security. Prior to joining the GSPIA, Srdjan was the Randall Dillard Research Fellow in International Studies at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. Srdjan has co-coordinated the CIPS International Theory Network since 2012.