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Abstract
The study presented in this paper analyses the political discourse on ship-borne tourism in the Antarctic Treaty area, with particular emphasis on the 2009 Antarctic Treaty Meeting of Experts, to examine and identify values underlying and shaping this discourse. We define values as internalised codes that affect behaviour and include judgements on what is good and desirable. Values, themselves, are not directly observable. Their presence and nature, however, may be noted via their effects on behaviour. To explore these values, a method drawn from different theoretical models across disciplines was developed. This method was used as a basis for a political discourse analysis to be able to structure the discourse on Antarctic ship-borne tourism in a way that underlying values become apparent. The research found indicators of several values that are driving the discourse on Antarctic ship-borne tourism. Drawing on Schwartz’s set of basic human values, the values we identified as driving Antarctic tourism discourse are universalism, security, power and conformity. These same values are also at the core of existing conflicts in the discourse.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 These organisations and stakeholders either hold special observer status within the ATS (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, the COMNAP and Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) or are invited expert organisations.
2 Information about the ATS, its members and activities is provided by the Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty (http://www.ats.aq/).
3 Machiel Lamers, Daniela Haase, and Bas Amelung, “Facing the Elements: Analysing Trends in Antarctic Tourism,” Tourism Review 63, no. 1 (2008): 15–27; Denise Landau, “International Cooperation and Management of Tourism: A World within a World,” in Science Diplomacy: Science, Antarctica, and the Governance of International Spaces, ed. Paul Arthur Berkman, Michael A. Lang, David W.H. Walton, and Oran R. Young (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2011), 241–4; Daniela Liggett, Alison McIntosh, Anna Thompson, Neil Gilbert, and Bryan Storey, “From Frozen Continent to Tourism Hotspot? Five Decades of Antarctic Tourism Development and Management, and a Glimpse into the Future,” Tourism Management 32, no. 2 (2011): 357–66; Jane Verbitsky, “Antarctic Tourism Management and Regulation: The Need for Change,” Polar Record 49, no. 3 (1 May 2013): 278–85.
4 For instance, in the 2006–2007 season, passenger vessels M/S Lyubov Orlova and M/S Nordkapp were grounded by the South Shetland Islands (WP37 & IP119, ATCM XXX). In the following Antarctic season 2007–2008, in addition to the M/S Explorer incident, the M/S Fram experienced engine failure while navigating in the Antarctic Peninsula region (IP121, ATCM XXXII). In the 2008–2009 season, two passenger vessels, the M/S Ushuaia and the M/S Ocean Nova, grounded in the Antarctic Peninsula region (WP30, ATCM XXXII).
5 John Dewey, “The Field of ‘Value,’” in Value: A Cooperative Inquiry, ed. Ray Lepley, Reprint (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970), 64–77.
6 Milton Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press, 1973); Shalom H. Schwartz, “Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, ed. Mark P. Zanna (New York: Academic Press, 1992), 1–65; Schwartz, “An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values,” Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2012.
7 Nicholas Rescher, Introduction to Value Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969).
8 Clyde Kluckhohn, “Values and Value Orientation in the Theory of Action: An Exploration in Definition and Classification,” in Toward a General Theory of Action, ed. Talcott E. Parsons and Edward A. Shils (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 388–433.
9 Defining values as “codes” is a reference to Hofstede’s mental programming metaphor (see Geert H. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980); Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, 3rd ed. (Berkshire: McGraw-Hill, 2010)).
10 Schwartz, “Values: Cultural and Individual,” in Fundamental Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology, ed. F.J.R. van de Vijver, A. Chasiotis, and S.M. Breugelmans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 463–93.
11 Schwartz, Jan Cieciuch, Michele Vecchione, Eldad Davidov, Ronald Fischer, Constanze Beierlein, Alice Ramos, et al., “Refining the Theory of Basic Individual Values,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103, no. 4 (2012): 663–88.
12 Elinor Ostrom, “Background on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework,” Policy Studies Journal 39, no. 1 (2011): 7–27; Ostrom, “Institutional Rational Choice: An Assessment of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework,” in Theories of the Policy Process, ed. Paul A. Sabatier, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007), 21–64; Ostrom, Understanding Institutional Diversity, Vol. 2009 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
13 The legal basis for ATMEs is Recommendation IV-24, enacted at the ATCM IV in 1966.
14 Formal institutions refer to official rules and procedures; informal institutions, on the other hand, are unwritten rules that developed through social interaction over time (see Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda,” Perspectives on Politics 2, no. 4 (2004): 725–4).
15 Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough, “Practical Reasoning in Political Discourse: The UK Government’s Response to the Economic Crisis in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report,” Discourse & Society 22, no. 3 (2011): 243–68.
16 Schwartz, “Normative Influences on Altruism,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 10, ed. Leonard Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1977), 221–79.
17 Paul C. Stern, Thomas Dietz, T. Abel, Gregory A. Guagnano, and Linda Kalof, “A Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Support for Social Movements: The Case of Environmentalism,” Human Ecology Review 6, no. 2 (1999): 81–98.
18 Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M. Cook, “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks,” Annual Review of Sociology 27, no. 1 (28 August 2001): 415–44.
19 Paul A. Sabatier, “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Revisions and Relevance for Europe,” Journal of European Public Policy 5, no. 1 (March 1998): 98–130; Sabatier, Paul A., and Christopher M. Weible, “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Innovations and Clarifications,” in Theories of the Policy Process, ed. Paul A. Sabatier, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007), 189–220; Christopher M. Weible, Paul A. Sabatier, Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, Daniel Nohrstedt, Adam Douglas Henry, and Peter DeLeon, “A Quarter Century of the Advocacy Coalition Framework: An Introduction to the Special Issue,” Policy Studies Journal 39, no. 3 (2011): 349–60.
20 Maarten A. Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Hajer, “The Living Institutions of the EU: Analysing Governance as Performance,” Perspectives on European Politics and Society 7, no. 1 (2006): 41–55.
21 Fairclough and Fairclough, “Practical Reasoning in Political Discourse.”
22 Hajer, “Doing Discourse Analysis: Coalition, Practices, Meaning,” in Words Matter in Policy and Planning: Discourse Theory and Method in the Social Sciences, ed. Margo van den Brink and Tamara Metze (Utrecht: Netherlands Graduate School of Urban and Regional Research, 2006), 65–74.
23 Cited from the UNWTO website http://www2.unwto.org/content/who-we-are-0 (accessed January 13, 2015).
24 Meanwhile, the IMO adopted the Polar Code and associated amendments to the Convention of the Safety of Life at Sea to make the Polar Code mandatory in November 2014, which they call an “historic milestone.” See IMO press release: http://www.imo.org/MediaCentre/HotTopics/polar/Pages/default.aspx (accessed: November 26, 2014).
25 Excluding the agenda, programme and list of participants.
26 The ATME established an intersessional contact group, a mechanism that had been initiated by the CEP in order to “moving matters forward” in between ATCMs and CEP meetings (CEP I report).
27 Australia submitted the working paper Environmental Aspects of Antarctic Ship-borne Tourism (WP8) to the 2009 ATME, in which it identified potential environmental impacts resulting from ship-borne tourism interactions with the Antarctic, considering exceptional, emergency or routine situations as well as regulations (or guidelines) in place to deal with potential environmental impacts.
28 The significance of each of these aspects is not considered in this preliminary assessment, but likely relevant for decision-making. It should be noted that most of the aspects listed by Australia, if not all, are not tourism specific, but apply to shipping in the Antarctic in general. Also important to note is the fact that the assessment identified either ATS or IMO laws already addressing the majority of environmental aspects.
29 See the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Article 217 (Enforcement by flag States).
30 IAATO information are incomplete, but at least two thirds of vessels operated by IAATO members are registered in states (mostly small island states, such as Bahamas, Cayman Island or Antigua & Barbuda), which are considered flag states whose maritime laws are more convenient in terms of costs, crew or safety requirements.
31 The United States has the largest number of tour operators active in the Antarctic based within its borders and that the majority (usually around a third) of all tourists visiting Antarctica per year are citizens of the United States. This high presence on the Antarctic tourism market is indeed recognised by the United States government, who acknowledges its major interest in Antarctic tourism (see statement of the United States Department of State: http://www.state.gov/e/oes/ocns/opa/antartictourism/ – accessed: November 27, 2014).
32 Schwartz, “An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values.”
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid., 6.
35 Ibid.
36 The ATCM XXXIII finally designated Resolution 7 (2010), recommending that ATPs, in general terms, should proactively apply port state control. However, Resolution 7 (2010) makes this demand explicit to passenger vessels bound for Antarctica and avoids any generalisation at this end.
37 James Griffin, Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); Nien-hê Hsieh, “Incommensurable Values,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (The Metaphysics Research Lab – Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, 2009); David Wiggins, “Incommensurability: Four Proposals,” in Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, ed. Ruth Chang (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 52–66.
38 Michael L. Moffitt and Robert C. Bordone, eds. The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005).
39 Anne-Marie Brady, ed. The Emerging Politics of Antarctica (Oxon: Routledge, 2013).
40 This matter is not necessarily tourism-specific but applies to Antarctic shipping in general.