From Enron to Evo

From Enron to Evo PDF Author: Derrick Hindery
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816502374
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Offering a critique of both free-market piracy and the dilemmas of resource nationalism, From Enron to Evo is groundbreaking book for anyone concerned with Indigenous politics, social movements, and environmental justice in an era of expanding resource development.

Blood of the Earth

Blood of the Earth PDF Author: Kevin A. Young
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477311653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Conflicts over subterranean resources, particularly tin, oil, and natural gas, have driven Bolivian politics for nearly a century. “Resource nationalism”—the conviction that resource wealth should be used for the benefit of the “nation”—has often united otherwise disparate groups, including mineworkers, urban workers, students, war veterans, and middle-class professionals, and propelled an indigenous union leader, Evo Morales, into the presidency in 2006. Blood of the Earth reexamines the Bolivian mobilization around resource nationalism that began in the 1920s, crystallized with the 1952 revolution, and continues into the twenty-first century. Drawing on a wide array of Bolivian and US sources, Kevin A. Young reveals that Bolivia became a key site in a global battle among economic models, with grassroots coalitions demanding nationalist and egalitarian alternatives to market capitalism. While US-supported moderates within the revolutionary regime were able to defeat more radical forces, Young shows how the political culture of resource nationalism, though often comprising contradictory elements, constrained government actions and galvanized mobilizations against neoliberalism in later decades. His transnational and multilevel approach to the 1952 revolution illuminates the struggles among Bolivian popular sectors, government officials, and foreign powers, as well as the competing currents and visions within Bolivia’s popular political cultures. Offering a fresh appraisal of the Bolivian Revolution, resource nationalism, and the Cold War in Latin America, Blood of the Earth is an ideal case study for understanding the challenges shared by countries across the Global South.

Latin American Politics and Development

Latin American Politics and Development PDF Author: Harvey F. Kline
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429974671
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
For over thirty years, Latin American Politics and Development has kept instructors and students abreast of current affairs and changes in Latin America. Now in its ninth edition, this definitive text has been updated throughout and features contributions from experts in the field, including twenty new and revised chapters on Mexico, Central America,the Caribbean, and South America.

Risk and Ruin

Risk and Ruin PDF Author: Gavin Benke
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295072
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
At the time of its collapse in 2001, Enron was one of the largest companies in the world, boasting revenue of over $100 billion. During the 1990s economic boom, the Houston, Texas-based energy company had diversified into commodities and derivatives trading and many other ventures—some more legal than others. In the lead-up to Enron's demise, it was revealed that the company's financial success was sustained by a creatively planned and well-orchestrated accounting fraud. The story of Enron and its disastrous aftermath has since become a symbol of corporate excess and negligence, framed as an exceptional event in the annals of American business. With Risk and Ruin, Gavin Benke places Enron's fall within the larger history and culture of late twentieth-century American capitalism. In many ways, Benke argues, Enron was emblematic of the transitions that characterized the era. Like Enron, the American economy had shifted from old industry to the so-called knowledge economy, from goods to finance, and from national to global modes of production. Benke dives deep into the Enron archives, analyzing company newsletters, board meeting minutes, and courtroom transcriptions to chart several interconnected themes across Enron's history: the changing fortunes of Houston; the shifting attitudes toward business strategy, deregulation, and the function of the market among policy makers and business leaders; and the cultural context that accompanied and encouraged these broader political and economic changes. Considered against this backdrop, Enron takes on new significance as a potent reminder of the unaddressed issues still facing national and global economies. Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.

The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same

The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same PDF Author: Jeffery R. Webber
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608467457
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Throughout the 2000s Latin America transformed itself into the leading edge of anti-neoliberal resistance in the world. What is left of the Pink Tide today? What is their relationship to the explosive social movements that propelled them to power? As China's demand slackens for Latin American commodities, will governments continue to rely on natural resource extraction? In an accessible and penetrating volume, Jeffery Webber examines the most important questions facing the Latin American left today.

Resource Nationalism and Energy Policy

Resource Nationalism and Energy Policy PDF Author: David R. Mares
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231554796
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
It is widely thought that state ownership of natural resources, oil and natural gas in particular, causes countries to fall under the sway of the “resource curse.” In such cases, governments allegedly display “resource nationalism,” which destabilizes the economy, society, and politics. In this book, David R. Mares dispels these beliefs and develops a powerful new account of the relationship between state resource ownership and energy policy. Mares examines variations in energy policy across a wide range of countries, underscoring the fact that in most of the world outside the United States, subsoil natural resources are owned by the state. He considers the history of Latin American oil and gas policies and provides an in-depth analysis of Venezuela from 1989 to 2016—before, during, and after the presidency of Hugo Chávez. Mares demonstrates that the key factors that influence energy policy are the inclusiveness of the political system, the level of competitiveness within policy making, and the characteristics of individual leaders. Domestic politics, not state ownership, determines the effectiveness and efficiency of energy policies: the “resource curse” is avoidable. Drawing on these findings, Mares reconceptualizes resource nationalism, arguing that government intervention into resource extraction is legitimate as long as the benefits are shared through the provision of public goods. Featuring a sophisticated grasp of both Latin American politics and energy policy, this book sheds new light on why some governments are responsible stewards of natural resources while others appropriate national wealth for partisan or private benefit.

Contemporary Issues in Politics & International Relations

Contemporary Issues in Politics & International Relations PDF Author: Nesrin Kenar
Publisher: IJOPEC PUBLICATION
ISBN: 1913809145
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
“Conflict” is a phenomenon as old as human history. Although the actors and reasons have changed, conflicts have occurred in every period of history. In the pre-Cold War era, conflicts in the international system were experienced between states. The conflicts during the Cold War mainly were interstate conflicts arising from the rivalry between the two blocs. In this period, it was expected that the threat to the security of a state would come from outside the borders of the state and from other states.For this reason, all the regulations made by the League of Nations, which was established at the end of the First World War, and the United Nations, which was established after the Second World War, to protect international peace and security included the measures to be taken against the attack or threat of attack by one state against another state. However, the developments that took place right after the end of the Cold War confirmed that the risk of interstate conflict decreased, and new security threats emerged in this period. The conflicts that emerged in the post-Cold War period were separatist conflicts due to ethnic and religious reasons, such as the former Yugoslavia and Georgia, or intra-border conflicts that occurred for other reasons, such as in Syria. Upon the inadequacy of international organizations and international law to intervene in intra-border conflicts, the concept of "security" was redefined, and a transformation from the security of the state to the security of the individual took place. New security threats such as environmental security, human security, food security, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and pandemics have been identified. One of the reasons for the decrease in conflicts between states in the post-Cold War period is that states mostly use "soft power" instead of military force in achieving their foreign policy goals. The structure of the international system is also a dynamic that affects conflicts. After the end of the bipolar system, the transformation of the international system is not yet complete. One of the most critical problems in today's world is the competition and struggle between states to become the future superpower. While the US wants the current status quo to continue, China is trying to change the status quo in its favour. The European Union is to become the dominant power in the international system after its transformation in the post-Cold War period.

Resource Radicals

Resource Radicals PDF Author: Thea Riofrancos
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478012129
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
In 2007, the left came to power in Ecuador. In the years that followed, the “twenty-first-century socialist” government and a coalition of grassroots activists came to blows over the extraction of natural resources. Each side declared the other a perversion of leftism and the principles of socioeconomic equality, popular empowerment, and anti-imperialism. In Resource Radicals, Thea Riofrancos unpacks the conflict between these two leftisms: on the one hand, the administration's resource nationalism and focus on economic development; and on the other, the anti-extractivism of grassroots activists who condemned the government's disregard for nature and indigenous communities. In this archival and ethnographic study, Riofrancos expands the study of resource politics by decentering state resource policy and locating it in a field of political struggle populated by actors with conflicting visions of resource extraction. She demonstrates how Ecuador's commodity-dependent economy and history of indigenous uprisings offer a unique opportunity to understand development, democracy, and the ecological foundations of global capitalism.

The Struggle for Natural Resources

The Struggle for Natural Resources PDF Author: Carmen Soliz
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 082636618X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The Struggle for Natural Resources traces the troubled history of Bolivia's land and commodity disputes across five centuries, combining local, regional, national, and transnational scales. Enriched by the extractivism and commodity frontiers approaches to world history, the book treats Bolivia's political struggles over natural resources as long-term processes that outlast immediate political events. Exploration of the Bolivian case invites dialogue and comparison with other parts of the world, particularly regions and countries of the so-called Global South. The book begins by examining three Bolivian resources at the center of political dispute since the early colonial period, namely land, water, and minerals. Carmen Soliz, Rossana Barragán, and Sarah Hines show that, as in the colonial and early republican past, these resources have remained the focus of political contention to the present day. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Bolivia's battle over natural resources was primarily concentrated in the highlands and inter-Andean valleys. Beginning in the 1860s, the bicycle and soon the automobile industries triggered demand for natural rubber found in the heart of the Amazon. José Orsag analyzes the impact of this extractive economy at the turn of the twentieth century. The book concludes by examining two resources that are central to understanding the last century of Bolivia's history. Kevin Young examines the fraught business of hydrocarbons, and Thomas Grisaffi analyzes the coca/cocaine circuit. Each chapter studies the social dynamics and political conflicts that shaped the processes of extraction, exchange, and ownership of each of these resources

Class Dynamics of Development

Class Dynamics of Development PDF Author: Jonathan Pattenden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351740296
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This book argues that class relations are constitutive of development processes and central to understanding inequality within and between countries. It does so via a transdisciplinary approach that draws on case studies from Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Contributors illustrate and explain the diversity of forms of class relations, and the ways in which they interplay with other social relations of dominance and subordination, such as gender and ethnicity as part of a wider project to revitalise class analysis in the study of development problems and experiences. Class is conceived as arising out of exploitative social relations of production, but is formulated through and expressed by multiple determinations. By illuminating the diversity of social formations, this book illustrates the depth and complexity present in Marx’s method. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.