Fighting Back: Resource Nationalism and the Reclaiming of Political Spaces

Abstract

If the state, civil society, and the industry have been assigned new roles under the Social-Development Model (SDM), the politics of transplanting norms engineered in multilateral spheres within local/national arenas have proven awkward in the three countries studied in this volume. While the state has been unable — and at times unwilling — to fulfil its monitoring functions, the model has ultimately transferred responsibilities which used to belong to the state onto civil society elements and local communities who clearly lack the resources to fulfil their new role. Meanwhile, the industry, which has also been adding to its own socio-environmental responsibilities, has seriously fallen short of fulfilling its promises. Unsurprisingly therefore, the reforms embedded in neoliberal norms are now being questioned and challenged in plural forms. As argued in this chapter, these forms of challenges have often unfittingly been downgraded to displays of ‘populism’.

‘Neoliberal discourse treats economic nationalism as a pernicious doctrine, and its proponents as the political enemy’.

Pickel (2003, p. 2)