Carbon Capitalism and World Order

Muzio, Tim Di; Dow, Matt

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-45443-0_34

Cited by 13 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Typically, these states extract rents from hydrocarbon extraction. An oligopolistic energy market and a geopolitical umbrella provided for by a 'hegemonic' West maintaining carbon capitalism [18] sustains oil-producing authoritarian elites [5]. Crucially, the political maintenance of these regimes doesn't require taxation which would necessitate political compromises.…”

Section: Social Energy Relations In the Middle Eastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the resource curse and pipeline conspiracies: Energy as a social relation in the Middle East

Hoffmann

2018

Energy Research & Social Science

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This article identifies problematic tendencies in current analyses of the Middle East's energy relations. There is a tendency to see all social relations as determined by resource extraction, use and transfer, contributing to the uniquely instable social relations of the Middle East. The combination of weak governance and geological over-determination continues to damage the region's fragile ecology. Under these conditions, social structures are incapable to react to new crises, such as the effects of global climate change. This article offers an alternative, more optimistic perspective on the Middle East's energy relations. Privileging the social over the material, calorific, geological or topographic dimensions of energy relations, it argues that social life developed in relation to its natural resources, matter and energy, but is not singularly determined by it. It proposes to historicise and, thereby, repoliticise the Middle East's social energy relations, including its nutritional and geopolitical dimensions. This reveals their spatio-temporally dynamic, rather than materially determined character. Energy is subsequently redefined into a political category, a field of social change rather than a limiting biophysical structure. The concept of Social Energy, thus, transforms nature from a constraining externality into an integral part of social analysis and transformation in the Middle East.

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Section: Social Energy Relations In the Middle Eastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the resource curse and pipeline conspiracies: Energy as a social relation in the Middle East

Hoffmann

2018

Energy Research & Social Science

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“…Initially, these states do well from the proceeds of hydrocarbon extraction, catering for the continuously increased demand the global political economy produces. This carbon capitalism (Di Muzio, 2015), avoids any fiscal policies requiring political support. It protects authoritarian clientelist regimes at a home while being geo-politically protected by Western hegemony (Vitalis, 2007).…”

Section: Postcolonial Development and Dialectical Naturalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental determinism as Orientalism: The geo‐political ecology of crisis in the Middle East

Hoffmann¹

2018

J Historical Sociology

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From ‘Resource Curse’ to ‘Climate Conflict’, more and more analyses of the current crisis in the Middle East start their reasoning from geo‐physical or natural conditions as determinants of social life. Paradoxically, despite its resource riches giving rise to conflict, the region's ecology is portrayed as fragile, alien and hostile. This imperial oriental imagination, assumes that a scarce nature is mismanaged by societies and states overall incapable of negotiating modernity. This precarious, crisis driven environment is now pushed to the edge by the effects of climate change with looming desertification and weather extremes and a scramble for shrinking oil reserves threatening to make the region all but inhabitable. This article suggests that this environmental oriental determinism in Middle East can be overcome by entering political ecology into the register of historical sociological analysis. Re‐socialising and historicising nature‐society relations avoids reifying the Cartesian nature/society divide, offering historical sociology a better toolkit to navigate the current crisis. Vice‐versa, it argues that political ecology can benefit from recognising the role of geopolitical relations in the social reproduction nature.

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“…53 In their introduction to Energy, Capitalism and World Order, Di Muzio and Ovadia explain how the harnessing of fossil fuels make possible the emergence of modern, industrial civilisation. 54 Previously, in the 'age of efflorescences', 55 civilizations were more immediately tied to the rhythms of plant photosynthesis and the power of wind, water, animals and unfree labour… what we would today call 'economic growth' could flourish from time to time but was never sustained. 56 In Carbon Democracy, Mitchell takes this argument further to show that twentieth-century modern democracy, via the power of organised labour, grows out of the coal-based fossil fuel economy.…”

Section: Fossil-fuelled Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…54 Previously, in the 'age of efflorescences', 55 civilizations were more immediately tied to the rhythms of plant photosynthesis and the power of wind, water, animals and unfree labour… what we would today call 'economic growth' could flourish from time to time but was never sustained. 56 In Carbon Democracy, Mitchell takes this argument further to show that twentieth-century modern democracy, via the power of organised labour, grows out of the coal-based fossil fuel economy. 57 Fossil fuel-based energy has been the ultimate enabler of modernity, and no other endeavour symbolises the desire for development more than does the craving for energy.…”

Section: Fossil-fuelled Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fossil-fuelled development and the legacy of Post-Development theory in twenty-first century Africa

Andreasson

2017

Third World Quarterly

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Fossil-fuelled development and the legacy of Post-Development theory in twenty-first century Africa * The last 40 years can be called the age of development. This epoch is coming to an end. The time is ripe to write its obituary.-Wolfgang Sachs, 1992 We have got to be so impatient with moving Africa forward relentlessly-we have no choice. In 2025 there is absolutely no reason why Africa should not be totally lit up with the power it needs to industrialise…-Akinwumi Adesina, 2016 * Forthcoming in Third World Quarterly, special issue on '25 years after the Development Dictionary: Post-Development and its consequences'.

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Carbon Capitalism and World Order

Cited by 13 publications

References 30 publications

Beyond the resource curse and pipeline conspiracies: Energy as a social relation in the Middle East

Beyond the resource curse and pipeline conspiracies: Energy as a social relation in the Middle East

Environmental determinism as Orientalism: The geo‐political ecology of crisis in the Middle East

Fossil-fuelled development and the legacy of Post-Development theory in twenty-first century Africa

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