Development of a new technological paradigm in the Arctic regions in 1990-2021

Research on the evolution of technological paradigms in various countries should be continued at the level of regions and municipalities. The article fills the gap, as its purpose is to study the formation of a new technological paradigm in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. We identified the chronology of the new technological paradigm deployment in the Russian Arctic over the past three decades; explained the reasons for making Nenets Autonomous Okrug a pilot site for technological, organizational, institutional experiments and innovations in the Arctic zone; we characterized factors impeding and promoting the formation of a new technological paradigm in the Murmansk Oblast. We determined the methods of research (system-wide approach, retrospective, cartographic, comparative, structural analysis) depending on the chosen theoretical and methodological framework: the theory of techno-economic paradigms, the theory for economic development of the North and the Arctic, the concept of evolutionary economic geography. As a result, we have identified and characterized five stages in the formation of a new technological paradigm in the Arctic in 1990-2021. We use the data on Nenets Autonomous Okrug to show the favorable role of small and medium-sized natural assets and the organizational diversity of extractive companies, an active policy of the regional government that pursues the principles of constructive duality at the first stage of the formation of the new technological paradigm. We also consider the data on the Murmansk Oblast to show the role of the resource monopoly of local large mining enterprises in inhibiting the entry of new actors and the deployment of new projects in the mining development of the region. We conclude that the formation of the new technological paradigm in the Arctic regions is characterized by significant unevenness (asynchrony): the susceptibility of the Arctic territory to the arrival of new actors, technologies and institutions is determined by the age of the resource province, type of natural resource, size and forms of location of the main deposits. The most important task for future research is to study optimal forms of state influence on the development of a new way of life in the territories of the Arctic with tools and institutions of active industrial policy at the federal, regional and municipal level.