Politicization of Russia’s Presence in the Arctic: Mechanisms of Anti-Russian Narrative Construction in Western Political Science and Commentary (2022–2026)

Annotation

This article examines the mechanism of total technological politicization — the deliberate and simultaneous transfer of several originally neutral spheres of Arctic activity (logistics, ecology, climate, scientific cooperation, resource governance) into the political register — as reflected in recent publications by Western scholars and expert institutions from 2022 to 2026. Unlike single-domain politicization, total technological politicization generates a cumulative effect of mutual narrative reinforcement, forming a self-reproducing cognitive system. The theoretical and methodological foundation draws on the author’s concept of the technological politicization of social relations, supplemented by critical discourse analysis, framing theory, and securitization theory. The empirical corpus comprises more than forty English-language texts produced by Western institutions across five genre categories — academic monographs, edited volumes, think tank reports, NGO materials, and analytical journalism — published between February 2022 and January 2026. The analysis identifies four persistent narratives of total technological politicization (“NSR militarization”, “climate rogue state”, “resource revisionism”, “developmental colonialism”), operationalized through subject substitution, causal inversion, lexical escalation, and epistemic asymmetry. The intensity of technological politicization is found to vary by genre: it is highest in military-analytical texts and think tank reports, and lowest in academic monographs. The structural marginalization of critical voices within Western discourse is identified as operating through a “spiral of silence” mechanism. The findings support recommendations on counter-politicization strategies, genre-differentiated source monitoring, and expanding the representation of the Russian position in international academic venues.

About authors

Mikhail V. Danilov, Dr. Sci. (Polit.), Associate Professor
Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov, Naberezhnaya Severnoy Dviny, 17, Arkhangelsk, Russia
super9999@yandex.ru, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0937-184X

Keywords

Arctic, technological politicization, anti-Russian narrative, critical discourse analysis, securitization, framing, geopolitics, Northern Sea Route, Western expert discourse

DOI

https://doi.org/10.37482/issn2221-2698.2026.63.185

UDC

32.01(985)(045)