Global International Studies Conference, World International Studies Committee (WISC) Porto, Portugal, August 17-20, 2011 Panel

Title: Linking the International and Domestic Dimensions of Natural Resource Governance: Critical International Political Economy (IPE) Perspectives

Summary: The third wave globalisation literature emerging since the late 1990s has attempted to explain how states respond to the pressures and challenges of neoliberal globalisation. Particularly, there has been a robust critique against the convergence hypothesis, which argues that countries move towards similar production and organisation structures as a result of external pressures. In explaining state-market relations, and the consequential role of the state, the hyperglobalist position has deployed the concepts of the competition state and the regulatory state to analyse how market reforms have been implemented in transforming the state. Two main theoretical gaps persist in fully exploring this position. First, there remains scant literature that empirically traces the convergence hypothesis in the context of developing countries. Most scholarly work here has focused on the dismantling of the welfare state through regulation and competition as methods of reforming the state. Applied in a blanket fashion to understand neoliberalism in developing countries, this poses danger of homogenising the diverse nature of states and markets and gloss over the different responses of states outside the advanced industrialised context. Second, we need to demistify the normative commitments in using such theories to explain policy reforms in the developing world. That regulatory institutions to open the market for competition were created requires more critical analysis, especially the politicisation of these state agencies, the diminishing capacity of the state vis--vis the market in the reform process, and political outcomes of liberalisation. To contextualise the debate on globalisation and state, a sectoral approach that looks at the global-national dynamics is necessary. The analysis of resource governance is relevant for two reasons. First, Latin America, Asia and Africa are now being integrated in the global commodity chain both as producers and consumers. With the commodity boom being sustained for almost 10 years now, domestic policies on extractive resources are being shaped by the discourse of comparative advantage and legitimisation of private (foreign) capital. Based on the position in the global value chain, policy actors within states respond to globalisation differently. Second, resource governance is a confluence of domestic and international factors, and development models are constructed from the institutional configurations of power. As such, critical IPE draws clear analysis of which actors, interests, and ideas shape the models of resource governance, and the extent globalisation has discursively and materially affected policy outcomes. Latin America is particularly interesting because it experiences a gradual process of statecontrolled governance of resources, and this coincides with the social change agendas of leftist governments. The panel seeks to have broader perspectives on resource governance by problematising the politics of neoliberalism and the links between global and domestic processes.
Global International Studies Conference, World International Studies Committee (WISC) Porto, Portugal, August 17-20, 2011

In particular the panel seeks analysis of the following themes: Political discourses held about globalisation on liberalisation and competition Role of foreign and public companies in developing the extractive sectors Exploration of competing policy ideas around the merits of natural resource-based economic development Global commodity chains analysis of extractive industries Labour relations in natural resource-based economies Analysis of Coxs internationalisation of the state Defining what is political in the International Political Economy of Natural Resources Analysis of variations of institutional responses to the question of resource governance showing the connection between domestic and international levels Exploration of how firms in the extractive industries organise themselves to respond to globalisation of production Different forms of mobilisation around natural resources to contest governance models

Paper Abstracts:

The Politics of Large-Scale Mining in Tanzania: situating the articulation between domestic policy and global economic processes France Bourgouin (Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark) This paper seeks to problemize the politics of neoliberlism by linking global and domestic processes in the current post-colonial setting of foreign mining investments in Tanzania. Historically, postcolonial African countries have had restricted private sectors, yet with the current worldwide movement towards privatization and liberalization, the region is now considered to be rife with lucrative opportunities. Since the 1970s, FDI to Africa has been facilitated by programs of aid conditionality and state governments' adherence to Western conceptions of sound economic policy advocated by the international organizations and development community. While the implications of FDI on economic development and international relations have been widely discussed, less attention has been given to understanding the active role played by host countries in orchestrating and controlling FDI. By their nature, FDI initiatives connect three sets of players: 1) International organizations involved in investment promotion; 2) Political and administrative leaders in host countries; 3) Executives and corporate managers of transnational corporations (TNCs). FDI flows are not simply institutional processes of globalization but also a means by which state elite can gain international legitimacy and recognition depending on the nature of their relations to TNCs and their adherence to the ideologies of international organizations. The discussion will consider both the role of foreign TNCs in developing Tanzanias mineral industry and the motivations behind the states shift from a state owned, unproductive sector, to a foreign owned and fast growing industry in the last decade. Since 1998, TNCs have assumed a dominant role in production after a new mining code allowed 100% foreign ownership, the
Global International Studies Conference, World International Studies Committee (WISC) Porto, Portugal, August 17-20, 2011

unrestricted repatriation of profits and capital, and introduced guarantees against nationalization and expropriation. Building upon six months of fieldwork in Dar es Salaam in 2010 as well as a set of interviews to be conducted at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town in Febryary 2011, I will identify the political and economic actors involved in organizing FDI and analyze the articulation of transnational economic power and political authority. By looking at the practices of state elite, their ability to promote or resist FDI, their alliances and conflicts, the paper will contribute to theoretical debates on the importance of private actors in the national politics of developing countries such as Tanzania. The EITI Transparency Standard : Between Global Power Shifts and Local Conditionality Ana Carolina Gonzles Espinosa (Ecole Doctorale de Sciences Po, France) & Asmara Klein (Ecole Doctorale de Sciences Po, France) The speech made by the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in 2002, is considered as the official date of birth of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Throughout intensive discussions between state, civil society and corporate representatives, with the support of several international organisations, the institutional design of the EITI, an innovative multi-stakeholder framework, was settled and finally implemented in 2006. Despite its youth, the EITI has already become an important reference in the extractive sector and even beyond, often being mentioned as a potential governance model for other problems of public relevance. One important factor to understand this relative success, is the context in which the idea and the willingness needed to tackle with the famous resource curse came to fruition. The EITI can be read as the result of important changes that took place in the international system, which lead to authority, in particular political authority, shifts. In this sense the EITI reflects changing interactions between public and private, between national and international (or transnational) actors. In this paper, we would like to investigate whether the EITI keeps its promises as a global standard by allowing a smooth transition between its global expectations, guaranteed by its international Board, and local realities. Is the EITI another Western standard imposed with more or less success on weaker developing countries or does it achieve a glocal nature by accommodating local conditions? Based on interviews and observatory participation, our response should be twofold. On the one hand, the EITI extends previous framing efforts which put transparency on the international agenda. Supported by transnational civil society organisations, multinational firms and a handful of (mainly Western) states the EITI benefits from a solid international anchorage, allowing it to politicises the mere disclosure of information. On the other hand, the EITI seems to better fit some national realities than others, its difficult implementation in Latin America best exemplifies that point. Torn between local instrumentalisation (Peru, Azerbaijan) and disinterest (Columbia), the EITI, among other things because of its voluntary principle, struggles with reforming local
Global International Studies Conference, World International Studies Committee (WISC) Porto, Portugal, August 17-20, 2011

power relationships, especially if the latter are already embedded in existing accountability procedures. This would obviously undermine its global scope and legitimacy on the long run. Neostructuralism and the New Politics of the Left: Critical IPE Perspectives on Resource Politics in Brazil and Chile

Jewellord Nem Singh (Sheffield, UK)

The celebratory tone of resource governance under more state-oriented policies of leftist governments must be questioned if one examines Brazil and Chile. These are cases of remarkably stable models of resource management that involve a dynamic relationship between the state and private sector, a depoliticised conception of what constitutes resource extractive policy, and constrained choices on the use of revenues for economic development due to the legacies of the market reforms implemented in the past. Fundamental to such constraints is the extent upon which state/market/labour complexes are embedded within a specific logic of neoliberalism, in this case, the deployment of competition, productivism, and necessitarianism as organising principles of the reform project in extractive sectors. Using critical IPE perspectives, the paper shows the changes in the governance of resources, particularly property rights regime, revenue management policy, and labour politics from post-dictatorship era onwards. To analyse the transformation of the state under conditions of neoliberalism, I use the Gramsican concepts of state power, hegemony and private authority to theorise how far state-market relations have been altered. The overall question I raise is whether Brazil and Chile posit a model of resource governance that goes beyond neoliberalism, and conceptualise what neostructuralism means in terms of state-market relations and social citizenship. Keywords: resource governance; neoliberalism; neostructuralism; Brazil; Chile; labour politics Beyond Development and Conflict: Minds, Markets and Margins

Aruna Pandey (SOAS University of London, UK)

The paper focuses on 'Conflicting Landscapes' with regard to questions of ownership and use of natural resources to address socio-economic and/or cultural needs of a community. Most often than not, questions of ownership, governance, use natural resources when brought forth in direct conjunction with the mainstream market-economy development agenda of the 'State' and the 'Industry', results in situations of conflict. In some cases such conflicts assume the face of a large scale local uprising with possibilities of introducing the contexts of violent environments. These uprisings of local communities (endowed with vast riches of resources in their habitats) have been understood, interpreted and acknowledged as those who seek to secure the socio-economic, ecological and cultural rights of their fellow community members. The paper is based on my research experience of such conflicts in Orissa, India. The research was an impact assessment of the mining industry in the region and was combined with an anthropological study of the antimining movement active in the region. Natural Resource conflicts around extractive usage of local resources have in the recent times gripped some of the leading developing economies across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Such
Global International Studies Conference, World International Studies Committee (WISC) Porto, Portugal, August 17-20, 2011

landscapes of political and economic conflicts have been sporadically addressed by local communities through innovative approaches and practice that re-define the use of existing markets to their advantage bending the lines of neo-liberal policy through their knowledge, solidarity and commitment to environmental integrity. The paper seeks to explore such instances of combined intellectual and social capital of local communities of India experimenting and creating new spaces and paradigms within the policy and practice of natural resource-based economic development.

Global International Studies Conference, World International Studies Committee (WISC) Porto, Portugal, August 17-20, 2011