LIST OF PANELS

Pushing back limitation and critics linked to the intensive exploitation of Nature, most of the States on the planet continuously open new spaces to the exploitation of natural resources based on a consensus on commodities, the renewal of extractive practices, their acceptance and justification (Svampa, 2016; Bebbington, Bury, 2016; Huber, 2009). This trend toward dodging environmental issues with ecological modernization epitomizes the Hotelling’s rule (Hotelling, 1931) about the scarcity rent in the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources: producers of natural resources respond to price incentives to develop new exploration and new exploitation of scarce resources, leading in the case of oil for example to periods of high price followed by sudden drops when new sources are discovered.

Jointly, the injunction to energy and ecological transition commits local territories toward landplaning disputes and national states to implement conservative policies to preserve natural resources, plan their exploitation, accommodate various actors and in some case adapt to climate change and ecological crisis. This transition was accompanied with a redefinition of the relevant scales of State intervention (Cowel et al., 2017; Poupeau, 2014; Cacciari, 2015). Politics and policies at different scales have thus a core role in orienting the economy, especially in a context of transition.

Those adjustments between contradictory interests call toward a set of questions.

1. Modes of structuration of natural resources governance: varieties of extractivism?

Natural resources are subjects of international trades generating huge benefits, but various political theories show national resource curse at the political, economic or social levels. Heavy tendencies display confined processes favoring exploiting companies and politico-economic alliances, described under the vocabulary of Latin-American extractivism (Gudynas, 2009; Bebbington and Bury, 2016; Abraham and Murray, 2015), American iron triangles (Heclo, 1978), Canadian staple theory (Hessing and Howlett, 1996; Howlett, 2008; Fortin and Fournis, 2014), European institutional regime of resources (Varone, Nahrath and Gerber, 2007), or through quiet politics (Culpepper, 2011). Whereas these approaches outline stability dynamics of extraction, we think that a closer look at potential changes processes is needed. These changes could be explained by critical junctures (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012), policy window (Kingdon, 1984) or political opportunity structures (Kitschelt, 1986).

Furthermore, those theories struggle to compare natural resources’ governance styles at the national, regional or sectorial levels. Although researches on the Anthropocene (Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2012), or the Capitalocene (Moore, 2017), underline global destructive dynamics, we can wonder, following Hall and Soskice (2001), about the existence of a variety of extractivism given national and regional characteristics and the modes of structuration and coordination of the natural resources production. Beyond national specificities, this variety of extractivism could be related to a broad range of elements: different forms of political machinery or collective capability  from one commodity to another (Mitchell, 2011), different statehoods models (Joppke, 1992) different governing modes (self-governing by authority, by provision or through enabling , Bulkeley and Kern, 2012) or productive models(Boyer and Freyssenet,2000) of extraction

The panel wished to open the black box of those modes of structuration to highlight the architecture and the parameters of change and continuity. Do national political styles of extraction exist? Is the variable politics playing a major role in the trajectory of those modes of structuration or a minor role as some Latin American works demonstrated (Gonzales-Espinoza, 2012)? Can we observe articulations between macro regimes of accumulation and sectorial dynamics of extraction? What are the roles of the different actors mobilized?

2. Natural resources local and national policies and politics

Political economy called for a focus on political structures of the economy to outline how economic structures are in fact determined by the interplays of various actors in more or less confined arenas. An important piece of literature (Boyer, 2015) stressed the role of the central state in determining economic policies, while other researchers also underlined inter sectorial differences (Jullien and Smith, 2008; 2014). However, the focus on national scales side-lined the particular dynamics of the local scale in the actual determination of situated economic activities. Moreover, those works mostly focused on the structuration of an industry without a specific interest for the context of transition and resources scarcity.

Various works on natural resources at the local scale underline the disputes between bigger exploitations and mobilizations to protect the local environment (Bebbington and Bury, 2016). Local territories are at the same time the necessary resources to the exploitation projects and a constraint to their implementation. In that sense, local territories are able to redefine at the same time the meaning, the shape and the content of those projects, calling for a focus on conviction mechanisms of actors and the construction of critical discourses (see Chailleux and Hourcade, forthcoming on local energy policies). In those researches, the role of the local environment and the injunction to transition are presented in great details (Cointe, 2016; Cacciari and Fournier, 2015), but most of time they failed to catch the articulation between the political structures of a given industry and its local implementation.

Works in political ecology and geography underlined for the last 15 years the necessity to understand the politics of scale (Marston, 2000; Huber, Emel, 2009; Gorg, 2007), that is the ability of specific actors to build the territorial scale the more supportive of their project. However, the literature on multilevel governance is divided between those supporting the opportunity for dominated actors to gain lever through decentralization of decision (Le Galès, 2003) and others claiming that this is only a new form for the central state to legitimate its action (Brenner, 2004). More emphasis is needed on the power relations around extraction at the local scale to identify rule makers and rule takers (Streeck and Thelen, 2005), the intensity and influence of social movements mobilization (Boudet and McAdam, 2012) or the potential power of weak interests (Kastner, 2017; Trumbull, 2012).

The panel wishes to question, on the one hand, the instruments of the “territorialization” (downscaling) of natural resources exploitation projects (how authoritative, participative, evaluative or compensatory procedures work? In what frame and parameters?). We aim to better understand how policymaking shapes the exploitation of natural resources in a given space. On the other hand, the panel wishes to question the impacts of this territorialization on a given industry (what is the role of local history and geography? What is the place of local actors? What degree of mobilization following which criterion? What is the impact of contention? What kind of knowledge is produced, mobilized and legitimized?). We aim there to explain the ability of local actors to translate national/global policies and projects, especially in regard with the injunction of transition.

The panel will favor proposals using comparative method in order to underline similarities and differences between local territories, countries, regions and economic sectors. Comparisons between the Global North and South will be particularly welcome.

References

Abraham, Y.-M. et Murray, D. (2015), Creuser jusqu’où?, Ecosociété

Acemoglu, D. and Robinson J.A, (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, London, Profile Books

Bebbington, Bury (2016) Subterranean struggles, University of Texas Press

Bonneuil, C. et Fressoz, J.-B. (2013) L’évènement anthropocène, Points

Boyer, R., et Freyssenet M.(2000), Les modèles productifs. La Découverte

Brenner N., (2004) New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood, Oxford/New York, Oxford University Press.

Bulkeley, H. and Kern, K., (2006). Local Government and the Governing of Climate Change in Germany and the UK, Urban Studies, 43(12), pp. 2237-2259.

Cacciari J, Fournier P., 2015, « La "transition énergétique" pour une ancienne commune du charbon. Entre impératif et opportunisme politique » dans Zélem M-C. et Beslay C. Sociologie de l'énergie. Gouvernance et pratiques sociales, Paris, CNRS éditions, 149-156.

Cacciari, J. (2014) "L’impératif de « transition énergétique » comme double peine pour un territoire de la production énergétique soumis à reconversion", Vertigo, 14 (3).

Cointe, B., 2016, « Le tarif d’achat photovoltaïque comme outil d’innovation territoriale : l’exemple des Fermes de Figeac » [VertigO] La revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement, 16(1).

Cowell R. et al. (2017) “Sub-national government and pathways to sustainable energy”, Environment and Planning C, 35(7): 1139-1155

Culpepper, 2011, Quiet politics, Cambridge University Press

Fortin, M.-J., Fournis, Y. (2014) « Vers une définition ascendante de l’acceptabilité sociale : les dynamiques territoriales face aux projets énergétiques au Québec », Natures Sciences Sociétés, vol. 22 / 3, p. 231‑239.

González-Espinosa, A. (2012). Chapitre 10 / La gauche et la continuité du projet extractiviste. Bolivie, Équateur, Venezuela. Dans O. Dabène, La Gauche en Amérique latine, 1998-2012 (pp. 335-365). Paris: Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.).

Gudynas E. (2009) « Diez tesis urgentes sobre el nuevo extractivismo : contextos y demandas bajo el progresismo sudamericano actual », in Jürgen Schludt et al., Extractivismo, política y sociedad, Quito, CAAP/Claes, p. 187-225

Hall et Soskice, 2001, Varieties of capitalism, Oxford University Press

Heclo, H. (1978) « Issue network and the executive establishment », in Anthony King. The New American Political System, American Entreprise Institute, Washington DC.

Hessing, M. Howlett, M. (1996) Canadian natural resource and environmental policy, UBC Press

Hotelling, H. (1931). "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources". J. Political Econ. 39 (2): 137–175.

Huber, (2009) Energizing historical materialism: Fossil fuels, space and the capitalist mode of production. Geoforum 40(1): 105-115.

Huber, Emel, 2009, « Fixed minerals, scalar politics: the weight of scale in conflicts over the `1872 Mining Law' in the United States”, Environment and Planning A, 41: p.371-388

Joppke C. (1992), “Nuclear Power Struggles after Chernobyl: The Case of West Germany “, West European Politics, vol. 13, n°2, pp. 178-191.

Kastner L., (2017), From Outsiders to Insiders: A Civil Society Perspective on EU Financial Reforms Journal of Common Market Studies, pp. 1–19

Kitschelt H. (1986) « Political opportunity structures and political protest: anti-nuclear movements in four democracies », British Journal of Political Science, vol. 16, n°1, pp. 57-85.

Kingdon J.(1984), Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, London, Scott Foreman & Co.

Lahiri-Dutt (dir.), 2014 The Coal Nation: Histories, Ecologies and Politics of Coal in India, Surrey, Ashgate, 318 p.

Laigle L. (2013). "Pour une transition écologique à visée sociétale", Mouvements 75, 3, 135-142.

Le Galès, P. (2003) Le retour des villes européennes. Sociétés urbaines, mondialisation, gouvernement et gouvernance, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po.

McAdam, D., Boudet, H., (2012), Putting Social Movements in their Place. Explaining Opposition to Energy Projects in the United States, 2000–2005, Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics

Mitchell T., (2013), Carbon democracy: political power in the age of oil, London, Verso

Moore, (2017) “World Accumulation and Planetary Life, or, Why Capitalism will not Survive Until the 'Last Tree is Cut'”, Progressive Review 24(3), p.176-202

Poupeau F.M., 2014. Central‐Local Relations in French Energy Policy‐Making: Towards a New Pattern of Territorial Governance. Environmental Policy and Governance 24, 3, 155-168.

Rubbers, 2013 « Les sociétés africaines face aux investissements miniers », Politique africaine 2013/3 (N° 131), p. 5-25

Streeck W. and Thelen K.(dir.) (2005), Beyond Continuity. Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies, Oxford University Press

Trumbull G.(2012) Strength in numbers: the political power of weak interests, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Svampa, M. (2016) « Reconfiguration du clivage Nord-Sud et géographie de l’ « extraction » », Alternatives Sud, 23(2).

Varone, F., Nahrath, S., Gerber, J.-D. (2008) « Régimes institutionnels de ressources et théorie de la régulation », Revue de la régulation, vol. 2.

Pushing back critics about the intensive exploitation of Nature, most of the States continuously open new spaces to the exploitation of natural resources based on a consensus on commodities, the renewal of extractive practices, their acceptance and justification. Jointly, the injunction to energy and ecological transition commits local territories toward landplaning disputes. Those adjustments between contradictory interests call toward a set of questions.

First, natural resources are subjects of international trades generating huge benefits, but various political theories show national resource curse at the political, economic or social levels. Heavy tendencies display confined processes favoring exploiting companies and politico-economic alliances, described under the vocabulary of Latin-American extractivism, American iron triangles, Canadian staple theory, European institutional regime of resources, or through quiet politics. However, those theories struggle to compare natural resources’ governance styles at the national, regional or sectorial levels and they focus on stability rather than on change. We can wonder, following Hall and Soskice (2001), about the existence of a variety of extractivism given national and regional characteristics and the modes of structuration, coordination and transformation of the natural resources production.

The panel wished to open the black box of those modes of structuration to highlight the architecture and the parameters of change and continuity. Do national political styles of extraction exist? Is the variable politics playing a major role in the trajectory of those modes of structuration or a minor role as some Latin American works demonstrated? Can we observe articulations between macro regimes of accumulation and sectorial dynamics of extraction? What are the roles of the different actors mobilized?

Second, various works on natural resources at the local scale underline the disputes between bigger exploitations and mobilizations to protect the local environment. In that sense, local territories are able to redefine the meaning, the shape and the content of those projects, calling for a focus on persuasion mechanisms of actors and the construction of critical discourses. More broadly, works in political ecology and geography underlined the necessity to understand the politics of scale (Huber, Emel, 2009), that is the ability of specific actors to build the territorial scale the more supportive of their project. More emphasis is needed to understand the power relationships between local, national and global actors and their respective influence on policy stability or change.

The panel wishes to question, on the one hand, the instruments of the “territorialization” (downscaling) of natural resources exploitation projects (how authoritative, participative or compensatory procedures work? In what frame and parameters?), and on the other hand, the impacts of this territorialization (what is the role of local history and geography? What is the place of local actors? What degree of mobilization following which criterion? What is the impact of contention? What kind of knowledge is produced and legitimized?).

References

Hall et Soskice, 2001, Varieties of capitalism, Oxford University Press

Huber, Emel, 2009, « Fixed minerals, scalar politics: the weight of scale in conflicts over the `1872 Mining Law' in the United States”, Environment and Planning A, 41: p.371-388