ABSTRACT
As a follow up to the introduction, Chapter 2 discusses political assemblages in the hydrocarbon sector, which involve arguments of institutional quality, “good” governance, and an understanding of the extractive bargains that form part of political settlements in a globalized assemblage. Although some proponents of the curse thesis see institutions as the primary determinants of a positive or negative outcome of resource extraction, such discussions depoliticize and take for granted the role of many socio-political actors (including globalized networks and coalitions). Resource curse proponents tend to neglect the broader frame of social relations and history in which institutions are embedded, making analyses of the curse problematic. This chapter argues that the institutions and politics that condition and shape the resource curse go beyond the national scale to other actors, institutions, and structures at the local and global levels, with considerable interactions among these diverse elements, and at various scales. We deploy political settlements as a theory akin to assemblage thinking to explore the complex interactions at the global, national, and local levels with regard to the benefits and challenges of natural resource extraction.
