Abstract

Large parts of the Global South are characterized by commodity dependencies and can be described as extractivist or even rentier societies. There has been little discussion of the fact that a successful energy transition for the Global North and in general progress in international environmental and climate policy would undermine the economic, social, and political structures especially of these extractivist societies that depend on fossil resources like oil and gas or coal, and bear potential for conflict. This raises questions of the baseline of the so-called ‘just transition’ in countries depended on fossil primary resource exports. So far, economic diversification strategies are considered as the silver bullet to adapt to projected decreasing demand for petroleum or coal. In the past, such strategies have been pursued with great vigor, but with little tangible success. The reasons for the repeated failures are all too often solely attributed to policy failures. In contrast, the research project aims to examine the economic, social, political, and sociocultural persistence of the extractivist development model on a local level in order to subsequently develop alternative pathways towards post-oil futures. In the spirit of recent research on comparative extractivism, the project will study extractive interventions in Ecuador and Colombia and to a lesser degree in Venezuela and Angola carrying out case-specific analyses to systematically compare and gain further insights into the transformation potential of extractivist societies.