First published 2021
This book examines how extractivism, populism, and accountability intersect in modern Latin America. Kingsbury argues that populist politics do not drive poor environmental governance but instead emerge as responses to accountability gaps within extractive states. The author uses Venezuela as his primary case study of a prototypical petrostate, alongside Ecuador, which shifted from agribusiness dependency to oil extraction decades later. Both nations demonstrate how extractive states operate through colonial export logic that governs relationships between state, society, and nature while limiting local stakeholders' ability to hold officials and industries accountable for environmental and human damage. Latin America's early 21st century populist movements promised more equitable and sustainable futures in response to these conditions. However, these populist moments intensified rather than reversed the technocracy, verticalism, and exclusion they sought to challenge, driven by efforts to maximize and distribute resource profits. The book reveals a cyclical pattern where populist hopes and disruptions ultimately succumb to the same extractivist state structures they attempted but failed to replace.
Genres: history, political-science, non-fiction, environmental-science, activism, latin-american-literature, academic, american-history
Vibes: thought-provoking
Tropes: accountability, state-structures
Setting: Ecuador, Latin America, Venezuela
Period: 21st Century
139 pages · Hardcover · Palgrave Macmillan
Content warnings: colonialism