First World Petro-Politics: The Political Ecology and Governance of Alberta - Softcover

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9781442612587: First World Petro-Politics: The Political Ecology and Governance of Alberta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442612584 ISBN 13: 9781442612587

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2016

First World Petro-Politics examines the vital yet understudied case of a first world petro-state facing related social, ecological, and economic crises in the context of recent critical work on fossil capitalism.

A wide-ranging and richly documented study of Alberta’s political ecology – the relationship between the province’s political and economic institutions and its natural environment – the volume tackles questions about the nature of the political regime, how it has governed, and where its primary fractures have emerged. Its authors examine Alberta’s neo-liberal environmental regulation, institutional adaptation to petro-state imperatives, social movement organizing, Indigenous responses to extractive development, media framing of issues, and corporate strategies to secure social license to operate. Importantly, they also discuss policy alternatives for political democratization and for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

The volume’s conclusions offer a critical examination of petro-state theory, arguing for a comparative and contextual approach to understanding the relationships between dependence on carbon extraction and the nature of political regimes.

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About the Author:

Laurie E. Adkin is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta.

Review:

What might it mean to explore the global oil and gas complex not from the vantage point of the resource curse afflicting a Nigeria or an Ecuador but through the lens of the contested oilfields in the Global North? First World Petro-Politics dives headlong into Alberta’s tar sands to show that oil and gas at both ends of the world system have striking family resemblances. In this outstanding collection the contributors show how the extraction of bitumen has given rise to local and national struggles including: the survival of Aboriginal communities, the defense of boreal forest habitat and watersheds, the struggles over the urban infrastructural needs of oil boom towns like Fort McMurray, and the national and transnational movements toward a low carbon future. The book’s admirable commitment to multiple facets of the operations of Big Oil – from racialised and gendered subjectivities on the oilfields, to corporate social responsibility and regulatory politics – offers up a brilliant accounting of the political ecology of Alberta’s fossil capitalism. First World Petro-Politics is a path-breaking collection.

(Michael Watts, Class of 63 Professor, University of California, Berkeley)

“First World Petro-Politics makes a major contribution to the petro-politics debate. Its use of political ecology perspectives offers a sophisticated, carefully crafted, and incisive analysis that could cause an earthquake in Alberta.”

(Mike Gismondi, Centre for Social Sciences, Athabasca University)

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