Resource Curse in the Global North: The role of oil revenues in the formation of the Albertan conservative assemblage

迄今为止，对石油开采的人类学研究特别侧重于发展中国家和土著世界。道格拉斯·罗杰斯指出，石油和土著人民之间的关系已经得到了特别好的研究(罗杰斯2015：366)。更具体地说，许多以发展中世界为中心的分析都聚焦于资源诅咒的观点。例如，Behrends(2008)研究了即使石油开采只是一种未来的可能性，苏丹和乍得之间的边界仍然可能发生冲突。与此同时，特里·林恩·卡尔(Terry Lynn Karl，1997)建立了一种分析方法，将那些在石油收入进入舞台之前就出现了现代制度的政治制度，与那些石油“压倒”新兴制度、制造资源诅咒的制度区分开来。这一假设导致了使用第三世界的人种学数据对这一概念的批评。Weszkalnys(2011年)探讨了第一个世界接受资源诅咒的想法如何导致新自由主义试图以先发制人和防止新的资源诅咒的名义干预S。因此，现有的石油人类学证明了一种广泛存在的新自由主义假设，即资源诅咒不是第一世界的疾病，强大的制度是关键的预防因素。出于这个原因，我想对加拿大艾伯塔省进行研究，这是一个第一世界石油国家，在新自由主义治理的支持下，资源诅咒的一些影响已经出现：政治权力在保守党手中的垄断，不断扩大的财富不平等，腐败，环境退化，不可持续的财政慷慨，以及荷兰病，根据Behrends et的说法。艾尔(2011)是“资源诅咒的放大”。尽管不是一个成熟的资源诅咒，但我仍然认为有必要警告，第一世界对资源诅咒免疫的假设可能既是种族中心主义，也是被误导的，特别是考虑到艾伯塔省的悠久历史和最近右翼经济自由民粹主义的复兴，以及在边境以南，美国许多最重要的产油区也是唐纳德·特朗普的选举心脏地带。因此，石油收入对第一世界背景下保守派领导的民主倒退的影响是一个紧迫的研究焦点，尤其是因为阿尔伯坦和美国保守派在气候变化问题上的否认立场。因此，我的目标是研究石油收入对选举的影响，以及石油开采与保守政治结构之间的关联，分析结果有助于我们理解对石油的依赖以及由此导致的保守派对气候政策的抵制。

Anthropological study of oil extraction has hitherto placed particular focus on the developing and indigenous worlds. Douglas Rogers notes that the relationship between oil and indigenous peoples has been particularly well studied (Rogers 2015: 366). More specifically, many developing world-centred analyses have focused on the resource curse idea. For instance, Behrends (2008) has examined how even when oil extraction is but a future possibility, conflict can still ensue on the border between Sudan and Chad. Meanwhile, Terry Lynn Karl (1997) establishes an analytical separation between those political regimes where modern institutions had emerged prior to the entry of oil revenues onto the scene, and those where oil "overwhelmed" emerging institutions, creating a resource curse. This assumption has led to critiques of this notion using ethnographic data from the third world. Weszkalnys (2011) explores how first world acceptance of the resource curse idea results in neoliberal attempts to intervene in São Tomé e Principe in the name of pre-empting and preventing new resource curses. Existing anthropology of oil has thus documented a widespread neoliberal assumption that resource curses are not a disease of the first world, and that strong institutions are a key preventative factor. For this reason, I would like to conduct research into Alberta, Canada a first world petrostate where some of the effects of a resource curse have appeared under the auspices of neoliberal governance: the monopolization of political power in the hands of conservative parties, widening wealth inequality, corruption, environmental degradation, unsustainable fiscal largesse, as well as Dutch disease, which according to Behrends et. al. (2011) is "an amplification of the resource curse". Though not a fully-fledged resource curse, I still think it important to warn that the assumption of first world immunity to resource curses may be both ethnocentric and misguided, particularly given Alberta's long history and recent resurgence of right-wing, economically liberal populism, and that just south of the border, many of the USA's most important oil producing regions are also Donald Trump's electoral heartlands. The implications of oil revenues for conservative-led democratic backsliding in first world contexts are therefore an urgent research focus, not least because of the denialist position of Albertan and US conservatives on climate change. I aim therefore to study the electoral implications of oil revenues, and the association between oil extraction and conservative political formations, with analytical consequences for our understanding of oil dependency and the resultant conservative resistance to climate policy.