Public Opinion, Vulnerability, and Living with Extraction on Ecuador's Oil Frontier: Where the Debate Between Development and Environmentalism Gets Personal

Eisenstadt, ToddA.; West, Karleen Jones

doi:10.5129/001041517820201404

Cited by 23 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Ecuadorian indigenous groups often rely on international allies to further their claims against oil drilling (Eisenstadt & West, 2017). For example, American activist-lawyer Steven Donziger and California-based Pachamama Foundation led the charge in the $9.51 billion judgment.…”

Section: Protesters and Their Governance Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Willingness to protest over resource extraction in Latin America

Arce

Polizzi

Reeder

2020

The Extractive Industries and Society

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Protests over resource extraction have increased in Latin America in recent years. However, significant variation exists in the region in terms of citizen's willingness to protest against resource extraction. We argue that this variation is based on the interaction of factors at both the individual and state levels. Individual-level characteristics, such as social engagement, influence the likelihood of protest activity. State-level characteristics, such as the quality of governance, also present opportunities for engaged individuals to challenge resource extraction. Following political mediation theory, we argue that collective action strategies are likely to be more productive in some political contexts than in others. Thus socially engaged citizens in highquality governance environments are more willing to participate in protests over resource extraction visa -vis their counterparts in low-quality governance settings. We utilize survey data and state-level governance data across Latin America to determine why some individuals are willing to demonstrate against resource extraction while others are not.

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Section: Protesters and Their Governance Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As environmental attitudes often relate to resource extraction protests (Eisenstadt & West, 2017), we also control for environmental issue salience (hereafter, Environment). The Latinobarómetro (2015) asks respondents to name the most important factors for national development.…”

Section: Individual-level Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Willingness to protest over resource extraction in Latin America

Arce

Polizzi

Reeder

2020

The Extractive Industries and Society

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“…"Vulnerability theory" contends that people who are most at risk due to a proximate threat are most likely to find it troubling (Eisenstadt & West, 2017). In a recent study of the intersection between vulnerability, extraction, and public opinion, Eisenstadt and West drew on this theory to predict which sectors in Ecuadorian society would express the greatest level of concern about environmental conditions.…”

Section: Local Mobilization and Bonding Tiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Streets to the Chamber: Social Movements and the Mining Ban in El Salvador

Spalding

2018

ERLACS

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Following an extended anti-mining campaign, El Salvador became the first country to adopt a legal ban on all forms of metallic mining. This article uses process tracing to map direct, indirect and mediated linkages between the anti-mining mobilization and the formal adoption of a mining prohibition by the national legislature in 2017. It draws on 78 interviews with campaign activists, legislators, government officials, business leaders and legal teams, and combines this information with legislative documents and reports, public opinion data, legal documents from an investment dispute filed against the Salvadoran government, and blogs and website of the Mesa Nacional Frente a la Minería Metálica. This analysis gives particular attention to the spatial reach and breadth of the anti-mining networks; fissures within and situational realignment of the political elite; and the strategic use of diverse institutional openings (docking points), some of which were adapted to new purposes by movement entrepreneurs. Although major obstacles to sustainable development and environmental protection remain in El Salvador, this article identifies a set of iterative interactions between activist alliances and institutional actors that can successfully contribute to policy change.

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“…Much of the work on extractive protests in Latin America focuses on events in countries in South America like Peru (i.e., Arce 2014b; Arce 2015; Arce and Hendricks forthcoming;De Echave et al 2009;De Echave 2011;Arellano-Yanguas 2008Aroca 2008;Bebbington 2012a;Bury 2005;Gil 2009;Li 2015;Ponce and McClintock 2015;Salas Carreno 2008), Colombia (Pérez Rincon 2015, Bolivia (Spronk and Webber 2007;Mähler and Pierskalla 2015), and Ecuador (Eisenstadt and West 2017) where mining and hydrocarbon extraction are the backbone for these economies.…”

Section: Extractivism and Mobilization In Central Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Directly related to resource extraction and resistance, scholars have studied the variation in the motivations and goals of local communities living within an extractive frontier (Arce 2014b, Bebbington andBury 2013;Eisenstadt and West 2017;Spalding 2015b;Svampa and Antonelli 2009). These studies demonstrate that protesters mobilize in order to protect basic rights like water quantity and quality, land and landscapes, and a healthy livelihood Bebbington, Bebbington, and Bury 2010;Bury 2005;DeEchave 2011;Gil 2009;Salas Carreno 2008;Aroca 2008;Li 2015).…”

Section: Resource Extraction and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Resource extraction, resistance, and religion in Nicaragua

Hendricks¹

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My dissertation examines the causes of protest over resource extraction in Nicaragua, and underlines the role of religion as a catalyst for sustained and successful challenges against resource extraction. With few exceptions, existing research has rarely explored individual-level attitudes related to resource extraction. Opposition and support towards mining are not mutually exclusive from protest success in overturning a mining concession. They build off each other. If a community strongly opposes mining, especially related to economic threats and grievances tied to environmental and agricultural concerns, it will likely continue its resistance movement until it sees policy changes that halt or overturn mining concessions in the community. However, if there is support for mining in the community over economic opportunities and benefits, mining activities will likely prevail because individuals in the community believe they will economically benefit from mining. I examine the causes of opposition and support over resource extraction in two Nicaraguan mining communities through qualitative interviews and public opinion surveys. I am particularly interested in why individuals either support or oppose resource extraction, and how these attitudes are shaped by social engagement (i.e., formed or reinforced) through participation in various types of local organizations. In doing so, scholars can begin to understand different individual responses to mining that underline the aggregate stories of homogenous community resistance and better understand the individual mechanisms that lead citizens in extractive areas to either partake in mining resistance or abstain. Additionally, existing literature has largely ignored the role of religion as a catalyst in fomenting successful resistance against resource extraction. In fact, there are thousands of protests against resource extraction in Latin America and hundreds throughout Nicaragua, but only a small fraction of them are effective in stopping mining concessions. Because there are clear power imbalances between communities and extractive companies, preventing a new mining project from being implemented or ending an existing project is a very difficult endeavor. Large-scale extractive companies often utilize "divide and rule" strategies that successfully break up local opposition to extraction. My dissertation examines how religion acts as a catalyzing agent in providing communities with the organizational tools and resources that assist individuals in effectively and sustainably to unite and organize against mining until the community achieves a successful national-level policy change reversing mining concessions.

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Public Opinion, Vulnerability, and Living with Extraction on Ecuador's Oil Frontier: Where the Debate Between Development and Environmentalism Gets Personal

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

Willingness to protest over resource extraction in Latin America

Willingness to protest over resource extraction in Latin America

From the Streets to the Chamber: Social Movements and the Mining Ban in El Salvador

Resource extraction, resistance, and religion in Nicaragua

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