Flammable Societies

Critical assessment of the impact of the oil and gas industry on socio-economic development across the world. Draws on original research.

The impact of the oil and gas industry – paradoxically 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. Other case studies include resource struggles in Bolivia, oil money in Venezuela and the Azerbaijani oil boom among many others.

Drawing on bottom-up research and theoretical reflection, this book questions 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.

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