Underdeveloping the Arctic: Dependency, Development, and Environmental Control

The Canadian Arctic is an underdeveloped region within a developed nation. In many respects — economic dependence, a resource-based economy, limited political power, and ecological damage, among others — the Arctic shares common characteristics with other underdeveloped, often ‘Third World’, regions. The causes of arctic underdevelopment are complex, but have traditionally been analysed solely in economic or political terms. This paper considers this underdevelopment in economic, political and ecological terms, aspects which have been combined in the emerging theoretical framework of ‘sustainable development’.