The Centre for Civil Society based within the School of Built Environment and Development Studies invites you to the seminar The Political Consequences of Mobilizations against Resource Extraction by Moises Arce.

Date: Tuesday 12 July 2016
Time: 12h30 - 14h00
Venue: CCS Seminar Room, 602, 6^th Floor, MTB Tower, Howard College

Topic:  The extraction of natural resources in Peru has led to an impressive economic expansion, but the country has also had more than its share of protests against resource extraction. The conventional wisdom on mobilizations against extraction emphasizes their geographical dispersion throughout the country, the presence of weak protest movement organizations, and ultimately, their low influence on national outcomes. Following contributions from the literature on social movements, in particular, those of political process theory, I explain the conditions under which localized, geographically dispersed protest movements are more likely to lead to organized and sustained challenges against resource extraction. I also identify the types of mobilizations against extraction that are more likely to shape national outcomes. A comparative analysis of several protests over extraction in Peru reveals significant national policy effects and highlights the salience of collective actors on the trajectory of the state’s economy. Insofar as the extraction of natural resources is pivotal to a country’s political economy, the political consequences of mobilizations over extraction in Peru have important ramifications for similar resource-based growth policies elsewhere in the developing world.

Speaker Bio: Moises Arce is the Frederick A. Middlebush Professor of Political Science.  He received his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of New Mexico.  He is the author of Market Reform in Society (Penn State 2005), Resource Extraction and Protest in Peru (Pittsburgh 2014), and numerous book chapters and journal articles.  His current research examines the political consequences of natural resource abundance and the limits of resource-based growth policies in Latin America and Africa.  He has been a Visiting Fulbright Lecturer at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2003), as well as a Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo (2014).