First World Petro-Politics: The Political Ecology and Governance of Alberta

First World Petro-Politics examines the vital yet understudied case of a first world petro-state facing related social, ecological, and economic crises in the context of recent critical work on fossil capitalism.

A wide-ranging and richly documented study of Alberta’s political ecology – the relationship between the province’s political and economic institutions and its natural environment – the volume tackles questions about the nature of the political regime, how it has governed, and where its primary fractures have emerged. Its authors examine Alberta’s neo-liberal environmental regulation, institutional adaptation to petro-state imperatives, social movement organizing, Indigenous responses to extractive development, media framing of issues, and corporate strategies to secure social license to operate. Importantly, they also discuss policy alternatives for political democratization and for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

The volume’s conclusions offer a critical examination of petro-state theory, arguing for a comparative and contextual approach to understanding the relationships between dependence on carbon extraction and the nature of political regimes.