Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

Oil is often viewed as a curse. Conventional wisdom holds that countries that are economically dependent on oil, especially those in the Middle East, are often less democratic. Proponents of the “oil curse,” the name sometimes given to this problem, argue that surplus revenue from oil sales provides governments in oil-producing countries with the resources to “repress dissent, buy political support, or relieve pressures for a more equal sharing of prosperity” (2). The oil curse blames governments that depend on oil sales for the instability, corruption, and inequality seen in their country and surrounding region and ignores the role that demand for this type of energy has on these societal afflictions.

As a political scientist and historian of the Middle East, Timothy Mitchell sets out to provide evidence that will reveal that the conventional wisdom about the relationship between democracy and oil—that oil and democracy are separate ideas—is simply not accurate. Mitchell argues that there is an intricate linkage between carbon energy and modern democratic principles. Mitchell notes that his book is a study of “democracy as oil—as a form of politics whose mechanisms on multiple levels involve the processes of producing and using carbon energy” (5).