Canada’s Carbon-Capital Elite: A Tangled Web of Corporate Power

Carroll, Bill

doi:10.29173/cjs28258

Cited by 25 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…There is considerable variation in the volume of interlocking within and across sectors. As reported elsewhere (Carroll ), the carbon‐capital sector is tightly integrated (in this instance, its 81 companies are linked via 112 interlocking directorates), yet advocacy groups do not share directors. Cross‐sectorally, the corporations are especially tied to the policy‐planning sector via 40 interlocks.…”

Section: Overall Findingsmentioning

confidence: 83%

The Corporate Elite and the Architecture of Climate Change Denial: A Network Analysis of Carbon Capital's Reach into Civil Society

Carroll

Graham

Lang

et al. 2018

Canadian Review of Sociology

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This study employs social network analysis to map the Canadian network of carbon-capital corporations whose boards interlock with key knowledge-producing civil society organizations, including think tanks, industry associations, business advocacy organizations, universities, and research institutes. We find a pervasive pattern of carbon-sector reach into these domains of civil society, forming a single, connected network that is centered in Alberta yet linked to the central-Canadian corporate elite through hegemonic capitalist organizations, including major financial companies. This structure provides the architecture for a "soft" denial regime that acknowledges climate change while protecting the continued flow of profit to fossil fuel and related companies.

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Section: Overall Findingsmentioning

confidence: 83%

The Corporate Elite and the Architecture of Climate Change Denial: A Network Analysis of Carbon Capital's Reach into Civil Society

Carroll

Graham

Lang

et al. 2018

Canadian Review of Sociology

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“…The elite network promotes cohesion and unity, enabling economically dominant interests to define and advance their interests effectively. Recent research has identified a "carbon-capital elite" within Canada's corporate elite, whose many interlocks with various civil-society organizations project the power of the fossil-fuel sector into the public sphere (Carroll 2017;. Below, we map elite interlocks among foundations, clean growth ENGOs and other organizations -whether corporations, civil-society groups (including other ENGOs) or state bodies.…”

Section: The Network Of Interlocking Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Foundations, ENGOs, Clean-Growth Networks and the Integral State

2020

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‘Clean-growth’ has been embraced by a professionalized segment of environmentalism as a project that aspires to meet Canada’s international climate commitments while supporting a robust rate of capital accumulation. This study situates clean growth within the network that reaches from Canadian foundations that are major donors, to the clean-growth ENGOs that receive the funds, and to other relevant civil-society, state and capitalist organizations, whose governance boards interlock with those of the foundations or the clean-growth ENGOs. Clean-growth initiatives are embedded within a configuration of facilitative funding and governance relations that include major corporate interests but do not extend to the more critical, transformative segment of Canada’s environmental movement. Funded by foundations and partly governed by corporate executives, clean-growth comprises an aspect of the integral state, working to mobilize popular support and technical expertise for a project of climate (in)action that suits dominant business interests.

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“…The Calgary-based core, in turn, is part of a regionalized national network, as fossil companies share directors with financial institutions based mainly in Toronto, and with other major Canadian corporations. The Canadian national network is embedded in a transnational elite network that includes major corporations based in Europe, Asia and the USA (Carroll 2017).…”

Section: Modalities Of Corporate Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Fossil capitalism, climate capitalism, energy democracy: the struggle for hegemony in an era of climate crisis

Carroll

2019

SS/ES

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With the highest per capita carbon emissions among the G20, Canada presents the interesting case of a climate laggard and, in some respects, a first-world petro-state. In these circumstances, a regime of obstruction, with a distinctive political-economic architecture, has taken shape. This regime is constituted through modalities of power that protect revenue streams issuing from carbon extraction, processing and transport while bolstering popular support for an accumulation strategy in which fossil capital figures as a leading fraction. It incorporates a panoply of hegemonic practices at different scales, reaching into civil and political society, and into Indigenous communities whose land claims and worldviews challenge state mandated property rights. This article first highlights findings from a seven-year collaborative investigation of the modalities through which fossil capital’s economic and political-cultural power is exercised at different scales; then outlines how the passive-revolutionary project of ‘climate capitalism’ is taking shape in the Canadian context as a response to climate crisis; and finally considers how a project of energy democracy might hold the potential to catalyze the formation of an alternative historical bloc.

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Canada’s Carbon-Capital Elite: A Tangled Web of Corporate Power

Cited by 25 publications

References 12 publications

The Corporate Elite and the Architecture of Climate Change Denial: A Network Analysis of Carbon Capital's Reach into Civil Society

The Corporate Elite and the Architecture of Climate Change Denial: A Network Analysis of Carbon Capital's Reach into Civil Society

Foundations, ENGOs, Clean-Growth Networks and the Integral State

Fossil capitalism, climate capitalism, energy democracy: the struggle for hegemony in an era of climate crisis

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