Beyond Deviance? Unpacking Political Ecologies of Natural Resource Corruption
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Book Launch:
Aled Williams (editor), U4-CMI, Tina Søreide, NHH, Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, CMI, Inge Amundsen, CMI, and Päivi Lujala, NTNU, in conversation with Åse Gilje Østensen, CMI.
Corruption, Natural Resources and Development - From Resource Curse to Political Ecology is edited by Aled Williams, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Bergen, Norway and Philippe Le Billon, Department of Geography and the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, Canada.
It provides a fresh and extensive discussion of corruption issues in natural resources sectors. Reflecting on recent debates in corruption research and revisiting resource curse challenges in light of political ecology approaches, this volume provides a series of nuanced and policy-relevant case studies analyzing patterns of corruption around natural resources and options to reach anti-corruption goals. The potential for new variations of the resource curse in the forest and urban land sectors and the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies in resource sectors are considered in depth. Corruption in oil, gas, mining, fisheries, biofuel, wildlife, forestry and urban land are all covered, and potential solutions discussed.
‘This is an excellent book which challenges us to rethink the relationship between natural resources and corruption. It offers a wide range of rich and detailed cases – when combined they powerfully demonstrate how a political ecology approach can help us move beyond approaches to corruption which define it simply as “deviance”. The result is a book which is of great value to academics and practitioners alike."
– Rosaleen Duffy, The University of Sheffield, UK.
"If you want to understand how corruption shapes natural resources use and extraction, this is a must-read."
‘This fascinating and wide-ranging collection shows how politics and power interact to limit the social benefits of natural resource endowments. Stressing the context-dependent nature of rent seeking and corruption, the authors move beyond the simplistic “resource curse” literature to highlight the key role of self-seeking local elites and of aid programs that fail to cope with local political realities.’ – Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale University, US.
‘Williams and Le Billon go from global cases to a unified vision, providing a rich and readable single volume cure for a long-standing intellectual disease. Moving beyond explanations that hold bad governance to be a “curse” of abundance, the thinkers and observers assembled here shed glaring light on widespread illicit cultures, politics, and streams of value that are all a part of natural resource management worldwide. To understand the political ecology of corruption, start here.’
– Paul Robbins, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US.