Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

Over the last several decades, British-born political theorist and Middle East expert Timothy Mitchell (b. 1955) has written about politics of the Middle East, political economy, politics of carbon energy, colonialism, and the creation of expert knowledge. He works across the disciplines of history and social science to provide more nuanced understandings of current and historical political events. Mitchell is a prolific scholar, having written five books, including Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics and Modernity (California UP 2002) and Questions of Modernity (Minnesota UP 2000), and many journal articles. Carbon Democracy builds on Mitchell’s earlier work on the invention of the economy, while also exploring how the production and distribution of carbon energy has shaped democracy.

Mitchell has won the Distinguished Scholar Award, Theory Section, from the International Studies Association in 2018 and the Ester Boserup Prize for outstanding research on development and economic history from the University of Copenhagen in 2017.

Mitchell received his B.A. (turned M.A.) from Cambridge University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics and Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University (1984). He currently teaches in Columbia University’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies where he serves as the William B.