The Politics of Accountability: Indigenous Participation in Colombian and Ecuadorian Oil and Gas Policies

Abstract

Current literature on social and political accountability hardly explains why governments are (or are not) interested in including non-state actors in decision-making and policy implementation. This paper argues that accountability is the product of the interplay of ideas and institutions to mediate contradictory interests in the definition of normative, strategic and operational policy aims and means. Process-tracing is utilized to identify the causal mechanism linking the adoption of international law instruments to actual enforcement of accountability in a policy area. The case study is about the indigenous right to prior consultation on oil and gas policies in Colombia and Ecuador.

The contribution of policy design to realist evaluation

“…This section displays a research protocol based on a realist approach of policy design, which was elaborated along a series of studies about energy policy (Fontaine et al, 2016; Fontaine et al, 2017; Fontaine et al, 2019). This protocol was applied to a research project about the negative effects of resource nationalism on public accountability in Latin American oil-producing countries (Fontaine et al, 2020).…”

Between elite reflexes and deliberative impulses: oil and the landscape of contentious politics in Ghana

“…She further observed that the capacity and willingness of political leadership to mobilize and channel 'mass support' were crucial for the exercise of central control (Skocpol, 1982:276). These socio-political entanglements that drive reform in oil-rich states is the subject of recent studies ranging from national and global guarantees for consulting indigenous groups (Fontaine et al, 2016) to the conflicts between the Yasunidos, a social movement, and the Ecuadorian government over the drilling of oil in the Yasuni areas of the Amazon region (Coryat, 2015). Indeed, insurgent acts from below do not always guarantee structural change.…”