A new interdisciplinary area of study: arctic regional science
N.YU. ZAMYATINA1, A.N. PELYASOV2
1Geography at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, Oficial Muni cipal Post No. 1, Moscow, 119991, Russia
2Center for Northern and Arctic Economies, Council for the Study of Productive Forces, Vavilov st., 7, Official Municipal Post No. 7, Moscow, 117997, Russia
Keywords: арктическая региональная наука, экономический мейнстрим, провалы рынка, арктическая отдаленность, Arctic regional science, economic mainstream, market failures, Arctic remoteness
Abstract
The article proves the expediency of shaping Arctic regional science as a new interdisciplinary area of study. The existing realities of the economic development in the Arctic territories cannot always be explained through the economic mainstream theories designed for high-density areas within the temperate zone. What looks like a rare anomaly for the temperate zone, pushed back to the research periphery, becomes the norm in the Arctic and can no longer be ignored. The fundamental specific feature of the Arctic regional science phenomenon is that it deals with an extremely dynamic, ultimately nonstationary, and economically enclave object, pulsating in space and time with a giant amplitude, remote from the main developed centers, and dominated not by competition forces but by monopolies of different types and sizes. The transformation of the original conceptual blocks established by the «mother science» regionalistics is so great in the Arctic and takes us so far away from the initial theoretical notions that it should be reasonable to talk of a radical paradigm shift rather than gradually drive the former ideas to the conditions of the polar regions. It is the first way, according to the article, which will provide the maximum explanatory power to the developed hypotheses and concepts and will ensure their successful integration with the unique realities of the Arctic.
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