From fragmentation to mosaic integration: the infrastructure economy of the Аrctic in the context of post-universalist globalization

Abstract

The article conceptualizes the Arctic as a mosaic infrastructural region where connectivity emerges not from political borders but from interoperable networks across transport, energy, digital and environmental domains. Building on infrastructural regionalism and the notion of infrastructural imaginaries, the paper argues that Arctic governability depends on protocol-level compatibility among heterogeneous subsystems rather than on centralized institutions. The study proposes a policy toolkit for managed interdependence: standards alignment, interoperable data-sharing architectures, adaptive engineering, co-governance with Indigenous communities and green conditionality for capital flows. By reframing infrastructure not as passive support but as active region-maker, the article positions the Arctic as a laboratory for a post-universalist model of globalization-connectivity without uniformity, where regionality is produced through protocols, networks and negotiated sovereignty.