States, Nature and the Exercise of Power in the Global South:
Towards a New Research Agenda
Call for Participation
May 21, 2015, 10am-4pm
Mappin Hall, Mappin Building, Sheffield
Convenor
Dr. Jewellord Nem Singh
University of Sheffield, UK
The idea behind the project came from an international workshop on extractive
industries governance hosted by the University of Sheffield in May 2013. The
workshop led the participants to think about “politicized” as opposed to “natural”
resources as a determinant of state-society dynamics, and underpinning this process
is the need to understand the peculiarities of states (and of state-building) in the
developing world to explain political development. Natural resource exploitation in the
long-run requires a conscious strategy of integrating environmental concerns with
developmental objectives. But this process is intrinsically political, meaning that the
ways in which states interpret the role of nature in economy and society, as well as
how states exercise its power impacts upon the institutional arrangements that
govern nature and environment. For developing countries, states gain political
legitimacy in the fields of environmental governance when natural resources are
exploited through specific political institutions which take into account both the
economic imperatives and the environmental impacts of resource exploitation.
In the era of globalization, the rising tide of environmental concerns alongside the
unrelenting drive for economic growth has created a paradox for Third World states.
Development is still narrowly understood as industrialization. States endowed with
natural resources give undue priority for economic growth and policies on resource
exploitation, and this contradicts significant efforts aimed at mitigating the
environmental costs of consumerism in emerging countries and the industrialized
world. In this context, the one-day workshop aims to bring together young and
established international scholars working on Southeast Asian politics, natural
resource governance, and comparative historical social sciences to explore the interlinkages between states, nature and the exercise of political power in the context of
the Global South.
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Structure of the Workshop
Instead of having paper presentations in the workshop, the participants are expected
to prepare discussion notes responding to the three key themes that we have
identified as potential areas of discussion. These notes will be circulated to the
participants before the workshop to enable everyone to think about their shared and
distinctive approaches in understanding resource politics and development. We have
then identified the following questions as initial points of discussion for each session:
Session 1: Scoping the Field of Resource Politics
Lead: Professor Jin Sato, University of Tokyo, Japan
(1) What qualities make “resource politics” a distinctive field of study?
(2) How might the teaching and research of resource politics speak to broader
disciplinary debates in environmental politics, natural resource geography,
political economy, and comparative social sciences?
(3) What are the challenges ahead in thinking about the potential contribution of
resource politics in broader social science debates?
Session 2: States and the Interpretation of Nature
Lead: Dr. Takeshi Ito, Sophia University, Japan
(4) What is the relationship between the inherent nature of governments to grow
in size and the expansion of states aimed at resource control?
(5) To what extent do rising expectations over environmental concerns influence
the institutional design and implementation in the Global South?
(6) What policy ideas and norms become diffused to address environmental
concerns? How are they embedded in domestic politics?
Session 3: Institutions, Democracy and Environmental Governance
Lead: Dr. Jewellord Nem Singh, University of Sheffield, UK
(7) What are the current institutional designs of environmental governance in
your respective research areas?
(8) To what extent are these diverse patterns of environmental governance
influenced by institutions and practices developed during the colonial and
post-colonial periods?
(9) Thinking about the context of globalization, under what conditions can local
institutions be part of modern institutional arrangements for sustainable
environmental governance?
(10) What is the relationship between natural resources and democracy across
distinctive regional contexts?
The workshop will serve as a platform to discuss resource politics and environmental
governance in the Global South, with specific emphasis on Southeast Asia, which will
then feed into discussions to think about further research activities to move forward
the project.
If you would like to participate, please confirm your participation using the link below.
https://docs.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/forms/d/1TfoaSR5DdTqKseUOnJ6EzHeL0
g2DzspXYv0FI9Bu-_E/viewform?usp=send_form
We would like to acknowledge the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation for
funding this workshop, alongside other research and teaching-related
activities in 2014-2015.
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