Strategizing Regional Competitiveness in Russian Arctic

Russia strategizes its regional development amid high uncertainty, territorial imbalance, and geopolitical restrictions. These challenges are particularly acute on the socio-economic and geopolitical frontier, such as the Russian Arctic. This region requires an effective theoretical and methodological framework for robust growth strategies. The article introduces a new approach to strategizing regional development that integrates the concept of regional competitiveness with Professor V.L. Kvint’s general theory of strategy and methodology of strategizing. The author developed a subjectivity-based approach for assessing regional competitiveness and applied it to the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF). Within this framework, the category of regional competitiveness was integrated into the basic algorithm of the strategizing methodology as an object of management. As an integral criterion of development, the phenomenon of regional competitiveness demonstrated dichotomous essence. The region exhibited a significant territorial differentiation across both population and business sectors. The algorithm, rooted in regional competitiveness and strategizing methodology, proved applicable to regions with diverse competitive backgrounds. It uses a system of indicators for goal-setting, scenario selection, and progress monitoring. The approach calls for further in-depth investigation of regional competitiveness factors and continued advancement of strategizing methodologies.