American Antarctic Policy Research

Antarctica, as the last continent discovered on the earth, has long been explored by mankind despite its harsh conditions. The exploration started from 18 th century, and the world has paid more and more attention to the resourceful continent. Now the Antarctic territory sovereignty, resource exploration and management, environment protection and scientific research are the hottest issues of the global governance.As the Antarctic policy architect and designer and one of the earliest countries who joined the Antarctic exploration, the United States has strongly influenced the international political scenario of this issue area. A review of the United States’ almost 100 years changing Antarctic policy has shown that the U.S. has never claimed the Antarctic territory sovereignty, and the U.S. Antarctic policy has close relationship and high interdependency with the Antarctic treaty system.With the thread of the space relation and time process, this dissertation use national interest analytical framework and social network analysis method to study the U.S.’s national interest and policy of the Antarctic, and try to explain how the U.S. uses international instituitions to preserve its’ own national interest of the Antarctic, how the international network come into being, and how the international network influence the judge of the national interest and the Antarctic policy development. The dissertation tries to investigate the influencing mechanism behind the Antarctic policy from the interaction process between the national and international level.Through the historical analysis, the U.S. definition of its national interest in the Antarctic evolved from “occupying the Antarctic” to “managing and exploring Antarctic”, and then to “protecting the Antarctic”. This evolution has been the result of the interest adjustment and balance through consultation and compromise between the administrative institution, legislative institution and the non-governmental organization. The U.S. has played the leading role on the international level and obtained the resource and power from the Antarctic treaty network. The U.S. has preserved the stable operation of the Antarctic treaty system and maintained its active presence and influence through the national and international interaction.Based on the study of the U.S. changing Antarctic policy process and the influential mechanism behind, the dissertation ventures to make some predictions about the Antarctic situation and U.S.’ future Antarctic policy. With the reasonableness of the Antarctic treaty system, it could be forecast that the Antarctic treaty system would continue to exist, and the primary national interest of the U.S. would not change. So the U.S. Antarctic policy would still follow the primary national interest, that is, preserve the operation of the Antarctic treaty system and maintain its active and influential presence in the Antarctic.