The Politics of Mineral Resource Development in Antarctica: Alternative Regimes for the Future by William E Westermeyer

Author:William E Westermeyer [Westermeyer, William E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, International Relations, Technology & Engineering, Power Resources
ISBN: 9781000232882
Google: tGMPEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 50417426
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

since this knowledge could result in an advantage for others. Views, when expressed, were always personal ones, never official government positions. The data received from this group of people is extremely valuable, but it has been evaluated keeping in mind the constraints to official cooperation. It is conceivable that some questionnaire respondants might deliberately misstate the importance of interests, but this is extremely unlikely, and major differences between questionnaires from the same country are easily spotted.

A second group of candidate respondents is composed of non-policymaking Antarctic experts.22 These people have considerable knowledge of Antarctica. Many are associated wih an academic institution or research organization. As a group they have been very cooperative, both because they have no official constraints and because they are generally receptive to empirically based research. Members of this group tend to be astute and discriminating, but, unlike official representative to the consultative meetings, they are not privy to classified discussions. A few members of this group represent special interests. These people, like all others, were asked to weight interests not as they thought they should be but as they are.

The third group consists of the Antarctic scientific community. Most of the people in this group are, not surprisingly, far better acquainted with scientific issues than they are with political ones. However, some members of the scientific community, because of their special interests and because of the nature of their jobs, have acquired considerable knowledge of political issues. Questionnaires were sent to most national SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) delegates. The SCAR group of specialists on the environmental impact assessment of mineral resource exploration and exploitation in Antarctica (the EAMREA group) was specially targeted. For similar reasons participants in the Bellagio Workshop (who discussed oil and other minerals in the Antarctic) were sent questionnaires. Directors of national research programs also received questionnaires. (In the United States the director of the Division of Polar Programs for the National Science Foundation attends Antarctic Policy Group meetings and is thus well-placed to be familiar with Antarctic policy issues.)

Finally, selected people without expert knowledge of Antarctica are potentially useful. The analyst tried contacting embassy personnel from the fourteen consultative states--with varying degrees of success. Also asked to complete the questionnaire were foreign graduate students in Washington area universities. U.S. State Department country desk officers for each of the consultative countries were asked to complete the questionnaire based on their perceptions of the interests of the countries for which they were responsible. None of these people were expected to be Antarctic experts per se, but it was expected that U.S. State Department and embassy personnel would have considerable knowledge of the general foreign policy interests of the country with which they were familiar. Foreign graduate students were sought to provide backup data for countries from which few returns were expected. The quality of their data was least highly regarded of all data sources. Still, it is Interesting and instructive to compare the results from this group of non-experts with those of the experts.

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