147

Elizabeth Havice Exploring the Political Economy of Resource Systems

Book Review Essay
Exploring the Political Economy of
Resource Systems through Coltan, Fish,
Food, and Timber

Elizabeth Havice*
Clapp, Jennifer. 2012. Food. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Dauvergne, Peter, and Jane Lister, 2011. Timber. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
DeSombre, Elizabeth R., and J. Samuel Barkin. 2011. Fish. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Nest, Michael. 2011. Coltan. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Faced with the option of wild-caught Chilean sea bass or farmed shrimp, which
should you select if you are worried about how your consumption might impact
ocean ecosystems? Are the minerals in the circuit board of your cell phone fuel-
ing war and violence? Framing their books with these kinds of questions, the
authors contributing to Politys Resources series suggest that most consumers
lack knowledge of the natural and human conditions that provide basic human
needs and luxury goods.
1
Clapp argues that this gap arises because, while the
components of resource systemsincluding resource production, exchange,
consumption, and regulationare increasingly complex and globalized, the
global political and economic dimensions of those systems are often left un-
packed, are only partially examined, or are ignored altogether (p. 5).
The objective of each book is to offer a descriptive overview of one re-
source system, summarizing (1) its present and projected resource-use trends
and associated environmental and socioeconomic outcomes, (2) the processes
and institutions that determine how the resource enters and circulates through
local and global economies, and (3) options for reducing or mitigating harmful
dimensions of the resource system. Overall, the authors steer away from concep-
tual and theoretical engagement in favor of offering a clear and accessible de-
* I am very grateful to Derek Hall and Alastair Iles for helpful comments on an earlier draft; any
errors are my own.
1. Others in the series include Land, Hall forthcoming; Oil, Bridge and Le Billion forthcoming;
Water, Lewis-Feldman forthcoming.
Global Environmental Politics 12:4, November 2012
2012 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
scription of the constitution of the resource system. The outcome is a series that
offers valuable pedagogical and investigative insights for the study of global en-
vironmental politics. Each book has been written to stand alone and thus can
serve as introductory material for courses and early stage researchers. Since the
books target familiar resources and are written in lay terms, they are likely to be
of interest to nonacademic readers curious about the processes and politics be-
hind the products that they use.
The value of the series for readers of Global Environmental Politics comes in
what the books collectively reveal about resource systems and approaches to
studying them. As environmental change, and related dynamics such as com-
modity price volatility and cyclical food crises, are increasingly visible in the
world economy, critical appraisal of the structural factors that shape these trends
is most welcome.
2
Furthermore, the data, claims, and descriptions in the collec-
tion aid in developing methods capable of encapsulating the complexity of
global resource systems. As such, the books underscore the utility of a commod-
ity studies approach to studying resource systems that is sensitive to political
economy considerations. What then are central components of resource system
studies that the collection reveals?
Resource-Use Trends and Associated Environmental and
Socioeconomic Outcomes
The books reveal three common features of resource systems: growth, scarcity,
and uneven access. All of the sectors trend towards increasing production vol-
umes; for sh, food, and timber, production volumes have steadily increased
since World War II, coinciding with the rise of consumption-based economies.
More recently, coltan extraction volumes have increased, coinciding with growth
in electronics sectors and the discovery of coltans conductive characteristics.
Resource systems face the threat of scarcity, though the form and sig-
nicance is sector-specic. In sheries, growing intensity of extraction has
driven resource decline, in some cases leaving target species commercially ex-
tinct and dramatically altering marine food webs and ecosystems. Timber
extraction has reduced forest cover the world over, eliminating habitat and re-
ducing biodiversity in the process. Scarcity in food systems is related to the
availability of fertile land and topsoil, and debates persist over whether food
production will, or can, keep pace with population growth. Coltan is often de-
scribed as rare, and price spikes for the mineral are directly related to imbal-
ances in its supply and demand; however, presently, scarcity is not absolute, but
related to mine closures associated with production conditions.
For resource systems organized according to the capitalist growth impera-
tive, productive limits loom large. The books highlight the innovative ways that
industries cope with, and seemingly overcome (perhaps temporarily), natures
limits. Fisheries and timber sectors have sought new resource frontiers when
148 Exploring the Political Economy of Resource Systems
2. See Clapp and Helleiner 2012.
original sources are depleted. In sheries, this involves shing down the food
web and/or in new ocean zones. In timber systems, producers have exhausted
forests in the Global North and are casting their eyes towards more plentiful for-
est resources in the Global South. Technological innovations also hold promise
for overcoming scarcity: sh farming is now the primary source of growth in
sheries production; forest plantations are a critical source of supply for timber,
paper, and packaging supply chains; and genetic modication is deployed to in-
crease food production. In the future, perhaps synthetic materials will render
coltan mining, and its associated environmental and social costs, irrelevant to
electronic supply chains.
All of the books highlight that inequality in access is part and parcel of re-
source systems. The cases reveal that the complexity of global production sys-
tems makes it difcult to identify, quantify, and study who reaps the benet and
who bears the burdens associated with producing resources. To help reveal im-
portant, but often hidden, sites in global resource systems where power is con-
centrated, and where norms practices and rules are formulated, Clapp intro-
duces the concepts of middle spaces and distance, while Dauvergne and
Lister introduce shadows. These concepts draw attention to one of the most
interesting and difcult frontiers in theorizing resource systems: as resource sys-
tems have globalized, what new regulatory spaces have opened? What are the
connections among and fractures between resources and consumers? What peo-
ple, places, and technologies facilitate such complex production systems?
Unfortunately, though Clapp and Dauvergne and Lister, and others,
3
have
developed these useful concepts in detail elsewhere, they are only explained cur-
sorily in their respective contributions to the series, limiting the extent to which
readers can engage them. However, two examples illustrate the concepts and the
utility of turning our attention to sites of power in resource systems. Clapp
identies a trend towards nancialization in agrifood systemsthe process
through which nancial institutions (e.g., banks and investment brokers) sell
nancial products based on food and agricultural commodities (known as de-
rivatives) to investors. The result, she argues, is a food system exposed to market
volatility and speculative investment. The emerging middle space for nancial
products links food systems to remote prot motives, distancing the rationale
for investing in food systems from basic human nutritional needs. In assessing
forest conservation challenges, Dauvergne and Lister highlight the long ecologi-
cal shadows that non-timber productsincluding soy, palm oil, and beefcan
have on forests, and in turn, biodiversity and timber-related economic activities.
Such forest risk products are often produced on land that has been clear cut of
tropical forest. Their effects on forest ecosystems and/or timber supply chains
are largely shadowed from consumers. Locating and assessing the hidden but
powerful forces that are shaping resource production is an essential component
of understanding resource systems and their environmental and socioeconomic
implications.
Elizabeth Havice 149
3. See, e.g., Princen 2002.
Processes and Institutions Shaping Resource Systems
A synthesis of the books reveals at least four common entry points for under-
standing contemporary trends in resource systems: geopolitics, property re-
gimes, multinational rms, and emerging economies. First, geopolitical rela-
tions often shape resource systems: states vie for resource access, or use resource
relations as a tool to establish geographically strategic political inuence. For ex-
ample, as DeSombre and Barkin show, when coastal states declared sovereignty
over resources within 200 miles of their coasts in the 1980s, they reset political
and economic relationships with foreign states accessing sheries resources and
marine jurisdictions. Similarly, Clapp demonstrates that North-South relations
have profoundly shaped food systems. Northern counties sent food aid to the
global South in the decades following World War II ostensibly for development
purposes, but also to win developing country allegiances during the Cold War.
Supplying food aid in this era also alleviated food surpluses in the North while
creating new markets for industrialized agriculture (including the use of green
revolution technologies) and contributing to increasing debt and dependence
in the Global South.
Second, property regimes, or lack thereof, can dictate which actors and in-
terest groups have access to, and control over, resource systems. Property rights
are difcult to delineate in sheries systems because sh are a mobile resource.
DeSombre and Barkin identify weak property relations as an explanatory factor
in sheries resource decline. They emphasize efforts to privatize shing rights as
a way to control excessive shing. In timber and coltan systems, weak property
rights and/or lax enforcement enable illicit resource extraction and related envi-
ronmental damage. While the authors highlight the signicance of property re-
lations in determining the economic and environmental outcomes of resource
access, they leave the complexity of social relations around property regimes
largely unexplored.
Third, the cases reveal that rms, particularly multinational rms, are im-
portant shapers of global production systems. The authors emphasize that
growing corporate concentration and control has signicant implications for re-
source systems. However, it can be difcult to generalize insights, as trends are
often sector-specic. In food systems, Clapp highlights that vertical and hori-
zontal consolidation among commodity trading and food processing rms, ag-
ricultural input rms (e.g., seeds and agrochemicals) and food retail rms (e.g.,
supermarkets) enables corporations to exert inuence over the rules and norms
of agricultural production. Firms take center stage in Dauvergne and Listers
study of timber. By linking forest, paper, and retail consolidation to low cost
products and narrow prot margins, they demonstrate how economic pressures
cascade through supply chains. Their story reveals that price, rather than social
or environmental considerations, is a primary governing factor in timber supply
chains. Conversely, DeSombre and Barkin argue that sheries systems are some-
what immune to consolidation, in part because of the huge diversity of produc-
150 Exploring the Political Economy of Resource Systems
tion systems and markets. Nonetheless, producers and rms in sheries systems
must increasingly comply with retailer quality and food safety controls and de-
mand for low prices. Notably, consolidation does not only render rms power-
ful, it can also subject them to political pressure. For example, activists have
urged consumers to boycott electronics rms that use coltan sourced from the
Democratic Republic of the Congo on the grounds that mining the mineral is
fueling civil war. Examples like this one demonstrate that rms can be a key lev-
erage point for reforming resource systems because of their buying power: advo-
cacy and regulatory bodies pressure rms to reform their supply chains on the
grounds that they will comply (or even lead the charge) to protect their public
image (see below).
Finally, several of the books make inroads to addressing a pressing but
underexplored issue in global environmental politics: how will resource sys-
tems change as emerging economies become the dominant producers and con-
sumers of resources and resource-based products? The collection demonstrates
that emerging economies are reordering production-consumption and North-
South relations in resource systems. Large quantities of raw materials are located
in emerging economies (and the global South more broadly), rms from the
South are becoming major actors in raw material extraction and investment,
and emerging economies are demanding natural resources in their raw and pro-
cessed forms. In short, emerging economies are pursuing natural resources al-
ready under environmental and socioeconomic pressure. The books ask, Will
new demand be met by diverting products from mature Northern markets into
emerging economies? How will new sources of power and new consumer mar-
kets shape the future of resource production systems? The collection enters into
these debates with cases and examples, paving the way for a much-needed em-
phasis on emerging economies in global resource systems.
Envisioning Solutions and Alternatives in Resource Systems
Are there mechanisms for expanding benets and reducing costs associated with
resource systems? Across the sectors explored in the collection, two options domi-
nate: reforming existing resource systems or creating alternative systems. Efforts to
reform from within include strengthening state and interstate regulations, gener-
ating market incentives for environmentally and socially conscious products,
pressuring rms to green their supply chains, and shedding light on the shad-
ows of production so that consumers can make informed purchasing decisions.
Alternatives outside of contemporary resource systemsless mainstream but po-
tentially of more interest for those seeking dramatic changes in the constitution
of production systemsattempt to link production and consumption in order to
meet basic human needs and environmental conditions. Examples include food
sovereignty and global environmental justice movements.
The books reveal that reform efforts have yielded victories, improvements,
and setbacks. Consumer boycotts of unsustainable swordsh products pres-
Elizabeth Havice 151
sured state-led sheries management organizations to strengthen regulation.
Responding to pressure from consumers, shareholders, and activists, powerful
rms have used their market power to reduce waste (and costs) and demand
that their suppliers switch to more sustainable production practices (such as or-
ganic farming) or eliminate socially harmful practices (for example, by comply-
ing with requirements to earn a conict-free label for minerals). Despite some
successes, the authors highlight that no solution is a catch-all: production and
consumption (particularly in the Global North) are organized around low-cost
products. Downward price pressure is passed though production chains and
reected in production practices that emphasize cost-cutting and economic
efciency above all else. Further, it is unclear if regulatory frames and advocacy
work to improve environmental and social conditions of production in the
Global North will be relevant in emerging markets. According to Nest, the
West is less important to the politics of natural resources than it used to be; to
maintain inuence in resource systems, Western governments and activists need
to nd messages that resonate with developing country consumers and ways to
pressure developing-country corporations and governments to care about the
impacts of resource systems. In short, there is still much work to be done in re-
forming supply chains for environmental and socioeconomic improvements,
much of which revolves around lling the middle spaces and shadows that
shape global production systems.
The main shortcoming of the books is that they focus on global produc-
tion-consumption dynamics to the exclusion of specic constituent compo-
nents of global systems. Ample text boxes, cases, and examples help to translate
generalizations into specics, but the sweeping categories (attributable to the
scope of the project) leave the reader wanting more detailed information. Nests
account in Coltan is the exception. It reveals the complexity of the conict in the
Democratic Republic of Congo and its connection to (or, as Nest argues, discon-
nect from) coltan mining. This specicity reects the unique features of mineral
extraction and that coltan is used in a relatively narrow range of electronics pro-
duction chains, demonstrating what can be gained from engaging more narrow
segments of resource systems. Together, the authors contributing to the Polity
Resources series have laid an accessible and timely foundation for assessing
the political economy of resource systems. Their attention to structural forces,
including the middle spaces and shadows, offers insight into how students and
scholars can approach the natural and human conditions of resource systems.
References
Clapp, Jennifer, and Eric Helleiner. 2012. International Political Economy and the Envi-
ronment: Back to the Basics? International Affairs 88 (3): 485501.
Princen, Thomas. 2002. Distancing: Consumption and the Severing of Feedback. In Con-
fronting Consumption, edited by Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates, and Ken
Conca, 103131. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
152 Exploring the Political Economy of Resource Systems
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