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While most Antarctic states view the continent as a foreign policy issue, for Argentina and Chile, it is a cornerstone of national identity. For Argentina and Chile, however, it is a question of national identity. These two Andean nations, sharing similar histories, culture, and political trajectories, project their sovereignty beyond their continental borders into a stateless land governed by an international treaty. The Antarctic Treaty designates the white continent as a realm of peaceful activities, dedicated to science and diplomacy, yet it is administrated by countries with competing sovereignty claims and resource exploitation.
This master’s thesis offers a multidimensional analysis of Antarctic governance within the Chile-Argentina regional duo. Their governance dynamics oscillate between competition, coexistence, convergence, and cooperation. The first section explores their roles within the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) from a geostrategic perspective, analysing how both countries attempt to balance sovereignty priorities with scientific and logistics collaboration. The qualitative approach integrates insights from Chilean and Argentine stakeholders to deepen the understanding of Antarctic identity within a complex bilateral relationship. The quantitative analysis of Antarctic inspections and research-driven engagement evaluates their collaborative capacity and their commitment to the ATS.
The findings suggest that despite diplomatic channels, joint inspections, and bilateral agreements, the Chile-Argentina relationship in Antarctica affairs has not matured into a strategic partnership. Instead, it reflects a scenario of segmented openness. Deep and sustained cooperation remains elusive, limited to coexistence, due to a lack of coordinated approach to shared interests and mutual perceptions of sovereignty threats. These unresolved governance issues and the reluctance to capacitate their cooperation raise a critical question: in an era where the ATS is increasingly challenged and threatened by powerful external states, does the Andean regional dispute over Antarctica retain genuine geostrategic significance? Even if the answer is no, both countries remain unwilling to relinquish their individual Antarctic identities in favor of a shared one. In world shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, dominated by US-China rivalry and as Antarctic governance begins to mirror the Arctic scenario, marked by climate disruption and the risk of militarization, Argentina and Chile continue to act as latent adversaries in the southernmost region of the globe.
