Flammable Societies

Studies on the Socio Economics of Oil and Gas

Edited by John Andrew McNeish

The impact of the oil and gas industry – paradoxially seen both as a blessing and a curse on socio-economic development – is a question at the heart of the comparative studies in this volume stretching from Northern Europe to the Caucasus, the Gulf of Guinea to Latin America.

Britain’s transformation under Margaret Thatcher into a supposedly post-industrial society orientated towards consumer sovereignty was paid for with revenues from the North Sea oil industry, an industry conveniently out of sight and out of mind for many. Drawing on bottom-up research and theoretical reflection the authors question the political and scientific basis of current international policy that aims to address the problem of resource management through standard Western models of economic governance, institution building and national sovereignty.

This book offers valuable material for students and researchers concerned with politics, inequality and poverty in resource-rich countries. Among the key critical issues the book highlights is the need to understand the politics of social territorialism as a response to exclusionary geopolitics.

Contents

1. Introduction. Rethinking Responsibility and Governance in Resource Extraction (Owen Logan and John-Andrew McNeish)
Part 1: Resource Sovereignties
2.  On Curses and Devils: Resource Wealth and Sovereignty in an Autonomous Tarija, Bolivia (John-Andrew McNeish)
3.  A Contribution to the Critique of Post-Imperial British history -North Sea oil, Scottish Nationalism and Thatcherite Neoliberalism (Terry Brotherstone)
4.  Where Pathos Rules: the Resource Curse in Visual Culture (Owen Logan)
Part 2: States of Collective Consumption
5.  Development from Below and Oil Money from Above: Popular Organisation in Contemporary Venezuela (Iselin Åsedotter Strønen)
6.  Living Under the Bullet: Internal Displacement in the Azerbaijani Oil Boom (Heidi Kjærnet)
7.   The Socio-Economic Dynamics of Gas in Bolivia (Fernanda Wanderley, Leila Mokrani, Alice Guimarães)
8.   Subsidised Energy and Hesitant Elites in Russia (Indra Overland and Hilde Kutschera)
Part 3: Supply Side Governmentality
9.    North Sea Oil, the State and Divergent Development in the UK and Norway (Andrew Cumbers)
10.  A Country without a State? Governmentality, Knowledge and Labour in Nigeriam (Femi Folorunso, Philippa Hall, Owen Logan)
11. The Race to the Bottom and the Demise of the Landlord: The Struggle over Petroleum Revenues Historically and Comparatively (Anna Zalik)
12.  Law’s Role in the Tension between Security and Sovereignty in the Field of Energy Resources (John Paterson)
13.  Fossil Knowledge: Networks, Industry Strategy, Public Culture, and the Challenge for Critical Research (Bret Gustafson)
14.  Conclusion. All Other Things Do Not Remain Equal (John-Andrew McNeish and Owen Logan)

·            Contributors

·            Index

About the Author

John-Andrew McNeish is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsens Institute. He is the project leader of the Norwegian Research Council funded project ‘Flammable Societies: The Role of the Oil and Gas Industry in the Promotion of Poverty Reduction and Social Volatility’ on which the book Flammable Societies is based.