Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada

Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada offers a comprehensive and insightful analysis of the consequences of oil and gas extraction for politics and governance in Alberta, while also providing readers who are not specialists in Alberta politics with a unique case study for testing the "oil inhibits democracy" thesis. -- Steve Patten, University of Alberta An impressive collection of detailed research on various facets of the Albertan oil economy from different vantage points-from state corruption to gender equality, from migrant workforces to visual culture. -- Matthew Huber, Syracuse University

This is a much needed critical assessment of the political peculiarities of Alberta and the impact the government’s relationship to the oil industry has on the lives of the province’s most vulnerable citizens.The contributors to Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracycritically assess the political peculiarities of Alberta and the impactof the government’s relationship to the oil industry on the livesof the province’s most vulnerable citizens. They also examine thepublic policy environment and the entrenchment of neoliberal politicalideology in the province. In probing the relationship between oildependency and democracy in the context of an industrialized nation,Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy offers a crucial testof the “oil inhibits democracy” thesis that has hithertobeen advanced in relation to oil-producing countries in the GlobalSouth. If reliance on oil production appears to undermine democraticparticipation and governance in Alberta, then what does the Albertacase suggest for the future of democracy in industrialized nations suchas the United States and Australia, which are now in the process ofexploiting their own substantial shale oil reserves? The environmentalconsequences of oil production have, for example, been the subject ofmuch attention. Little is likely to change, however, if citizens ofoil-rich countries cannot effectively intervene to influence governmentpolicy.