Reviews in American History: CRUDE HISTORY, Review of Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil, and Matthew Huber, Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom and the Forces of Capital (original) (raw)
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Review of T. Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (London: Verso, 2011)
In Carbon Democracy, Timothy Mitchell takes the topics of his previous researches one or two steps further, to the core of global civilization. There, he finds oil fuelling capitalist democracies, labour and international relations, Islamic schools, and economic calculations, among many other socio-technical systems. Mitchell's ambitious quest of bringing the material world -fossil fuels -to the forefront of the historical and anthropological analysis of world politics in the last two centuries does not stem from reductionist materialism. Mitchell is well aware that a complex network of socio-political alliances (and confrontations) is required for the oil to flow above ground, be transported in transatlantic voyages, and be transformed into the kinds of goods we depend on.
FOCAAL Blog
A central, perhaps the central, question in political economy today is how forces of democracy, including organized labor and its allies, can regain a degree of control over corporate capitalism in the neoliberal era. Equally pressing (and related) is our need to confront climate change and replace fossil fuels with alternative energy resources. While the silos of academia have splintered political economy from studies of energy, the beauty of Timothy Mitchell's Carbon Democracy lies in his eloquent and comprehensive study that merges these two essential aspects of industrial production and modern society into an integrated analysis.
Fueling the Neoliberal Turn: Why We Need to Engage Timothy Mitchell’s “Carbon Democracy”
FOCAAL Blog
A central, perhaps the central, question in political economy today is how forces of democracy, including organized labor and its allies, can regain a degree of control over corporate capitalism in the neoliberal era. Equally pressing (and related) is our need to confront climate change and replace fossil fuels with alternative energy resources. While the silos of academia have splintered political economy from studies of energy, the beauty of Timothy Mitchell's Carbon Democracy lies in his eloquent and comprehensive study that merges these two essential aspects of industrial production and modern society into an integrated analysis.
Review Article: Oil and Social Movements
2014
Timothy Mitchell: Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil, London/New York: Verso, 2011, ISBN 13: 978 – 1781681169, 288 pp. C. I. Obi/Siri Aas Rustad: Oil and Insurgency in the Niger Delta. Managing the Complex Politics of Petro-Violence, London/New York: Zed Books, 2011, ISBN: 9781848138070, 255 pp. Michael Lewin Ross: The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, New York: Princeton University Press, 2012, ISBN: 9780691159638, 312 pp. Brian Black: Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History, Lanham et. al.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012, ISBN: 978 – 0742556546, 288 pp.
Differentiation, materiality, and power: Towards a political economy of fossil fuels
Energy Research & Social Science, 2018
Current Political Science approaches to the role of energy and fossil fuels in international relations are overwhelmingly based on two widely disseminated, but unhelpful practices: the artificial subsuming of other fossil fuels to oil, and the perception of energy power as state-centered influence. The issue of the differences between various fossil fuels has not been dealt with explicitly, yet it has key implications for the way in which energy is translated into power. On the basis of a structured comparison between the three most commonly used fossil fuelsoil, natural gas and coalthis article compares their key physical characteristics in order to understand how these affect secondary features (such as those having to do with and transportability, obstructability, size and location of typical markets, type of processing required, cartel possibilities, and substitutability), all of which affect relationships between actors and the ability to use energy as means of constitutive and relational power.