Extractive Bargains and the State-Society Nexus: One World, Many Bargains

Abstract

States have historically sought to position (sometimes re-imagine) extractive activities as presenting an opportunity for broader societal goals to be met. This positioning typically entails the need to convince social actors that the continuation of resource extraction is beneficial despite the increasing recognition of its socio-environmental costs and the growing resistance to extractivism globally. This act or process of seeking societal acceptance for the state’s preferred extractive policies in exchange for delivering on wider societal goals is what we define as ‘extractive bargains’. Informed by this central conceptualization, this chapter offers a novel approach to exploring such bargains within the spectrum of both analytical and normative ideal types. To provide further empirical grounding, we give an initial account of cases from the Global South and Global North that exemplify the different types of analytical and normative bargains operating at the state-society interface. We also briefly explore those that appear to lie outside of this level of analysis.