Russia’s Arctic strategies of 2014 and 2021: Is continuity possible amid shifting priorities? (Part 2)

This article examines the evolution of strategic development documents for the Russian Arctic, focusing on the alignment between policy objectives, planned activities, and anticipated outcomes. The relevance of this research stems from the necessity to ensure balance, continuity, and comprehensiveness in regulatory impacts within the framework of strategic management for this macroregion. The primary aim is to assess the coherence among values, strategic initiatives, and projected socio-economic effects across two distinct periods of document adoption, thereby analyzing their dynamic progression. The analysis is based on documents adopted during two document adoption waves: the first (2008–2014) and the second (2020–2021). Methodologically, the study employs semantic and content analysis techniques utilizing the Discant (Vega) system, the SemSin parser, the Stalker utility, and Python. To quantify semantic divergence, measures such as the Bray-Curtis index and cosine similarity were applied. The texts were structured to reveal changes in semantic content related to expected policy effects over time. Additionally, internal consistency within each period was evaluated by examining the coherence among the following three categories: “values,” “initiatives,” and “effects.” The findings indicate that major transformations in these documents are associated with an increased emphasis on general organizational effects, a shift toward project management and investment attraction within the economic sphere, heightened importance of social effects and labor market considerations, and a focus on safety in emergencies. Notably, the analysis reveals that values and effects, as well as values and initiatives, exhibit extremely low levels of coherence. The “measures–effects” pair demonstrates the highest degree of coherence. The results suggest that values—fundamental system-forming categories within strategic documents—tend to be disconnected from the system of meanings constructed in these texts. The novelty of this research lies in its contribution to scientific understanding of strategic goal-setting processes in managing Arctic development through advanced content analysis techniques applied to policy documents. In terms of its practical application, the research improves analytical frameworks for refining approaches to developing strategic planning documents, ultimately supporting greater coherence in public policy for the Russian Arctic.