Organized by Alexander Etkind and Valeriia Hesse (OHPA-CEU)
Political scientists call it the oil curse, economists call it the Dutch disease, and anthropologists, extractivism. All this literature – hundreds of studies – has proven that the petrostate is related to dictatorship, corruption, and aggression. Another stream of literature – thousands of studies – demonstrates that using oil leads to a climate crisis. Central for our survival, these two stories have been rarely told together. While European leaders think about decarbonization as a common cause, petrostates see it as a zero-sum game or, even worse, a conspiracy aimed at depriving them of their essential profits. Some wars of this century, probably most of them, would not have happened if the invaders had no petrodollars in their sovereign funds. From Niger to Norway and from Russia to Iran, oil emissions and oil profits are jointly destroying the planet. Global and interdisciplinary, the double-edged problem of decarbonization and the petrostate unfolds in comparative case studies. Launching this research is the task of the current workshop.
Featuring:
Alexander Etkind (OHPA-CEU). The oil curse and the state course
Naosuke Mukoyama (University of Tokio). Colonial oil and the origins of petrostates
Aleh Cherp (CEU) Do petro-states slow decarbonisation? And if so, how?
Andreas Folkers (Frankfurt Institute for Social Research). Carbon Bombs
Per Högselius (Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm). The future of Russia-EU energy relations
Sergii Glebov (Odessa National I.I. Mechnykov University). Oil-for-(in)security: the Kremlin's energy weapon as a peacebreaker in times of hybrid warfare
Anastasia Pavlenko (CEU). European energy transition in the time of crisis
Henri Kaup (EUI). Re-carbonizing Kaliningrad: Putinist Geopolitics and the role of LNG
Bohdan Shumylovych (UCU Lviv), Artem Kharchenko (NUA Kharkiv). A tale of two cities: Lviv and Kharkiv at war
Ayansina Ayanladе (OHPA-CEU). Nigeria's Petrostate Dilemma: Challenges and Opportunities
Dirk Moses (CUNY). Military vs. genocidal violence as a problematic distinction
The whole-day workshop will provide meals throughout the day and will be followed by a reception.