The Speculative Petro-State: Volatile Oil Prices and Resource Populism in Ecuador

Abstract

In petro-states, the governance of flows of oil and oil money is vital to state legitimacy (e.g., regulations, contracts with companies, social compensation in sites of oil extraction). This article explores how contemporary oil price volatility shapes oil governance and the terms of petro-state legitimacy in Ecuador. In recent years, a technocratic, populist regime, led by President Rafael Correa, promised to return national oil resources to “the people” and inaugurate a “postneoliberal” era of sovereign, oil-driven development. The performance of this promise, through augmented public spending, was contingent on international oil prices. We track the emergence of what we call a speculative petro-state, in which state actors claimed to successfully gamble on volatile markets on behalf of the nation, as an emergent strategy for cultivating popular legitimacy. Such claims took the form of petro-populist discourses and practices. First, the Correa administration characterized new contractual relations with oil companies and capital as evidence of Correa’s leadership in complex oil markets, seeking political legitimacy for the state through perceptions of Correa’s personal capacity to manage market risk. Second, as prices surged, the Correa administration channeled rents into building spectacular public works or “petro-populist landscapes,” as material verification of Correa’s petro-leadership in volatile markets. We track how market risk management became one key organizing factor of populist rule in Ecuador and we analyze how this case illuminates relations between populist politics and economic spheres. Key Words: Ecuador, governance, oil price, resource populism, volatility.

在石油国家中, 石油与石油金流的治理, 对国家正当性而言至关重要（例如规范、公司契约、採油现址的社会补偿等）。本文探讨当代的油价波动如何形塑厄瓜多尔的石油治理与石油国家的正当性。近年来, 一个由总统拉斐尔．科雷亚所带领的技术民粹主义政体, 承诺将国家的石油资源归还给“人民”, 并开展据独立主权、由石油驱动的发展之“后新自由主义”时代。此一通过增加公共支出的承诺之实践, 则取决于国际油价。我们称之为投机石油国家并追踪其浮现, 其中国家行动者主张代表全国, 成功地地对市场波动进行博弈, 作为浮现中的培植大众正当性之策略。此般宣称, 採取石油—民粹主义的论述与实践形式。首先, 科雷亚政府将与石油公司与资本的崭新契约关系视为科雷亚在复杂的石油市场中的领导力之明证, 并通过对科雷亚管理市场风险的个人能力之看法, 寻求国家的政治正当性。再者, 当价格上涨时, 科雷亚政府将地租引导至发展奇观公共工程、亦或所谓的“石油民粹主义地景”, 作为科雷亚在市场波动中的石油领导力之证明。我们追溯市场风险管理如何成为厄瓜多尔民粹主义治理的组织要素, 并分析此一案例如何启发民粹主义政治和经济领域之间的关联性。关键词：厄瓜多尔, 治理, 油价, 资源民粹主义, 波动。

En los petro-estados, la gobernanza de los flujos de petróleo y del dinero petrolero es vital para la legitimidad del estado (por ej., las regulaciones, los contratos con las compañías, la compensación social en los lugares de extracción del petróleo). Este artículo explora el modo como la volatilidad contemporánea del precio del petróleo configura su gobernanza y los términos de la legitimidad del petro-estado en Ecuador. En años recientes, un régimen populista tecnocrático encabezado por el Presidente Rafael Correa, prometió devolver los recursos petroleros nacionales “al pueblo” e inauguró una era “posneoliberal” de desarrollo soberano basada en el petróleo. La representación de esta promesa, por medio del incremento en el gasto público, era contingente a los precios internacionales del crudo. Le seguimos el paso al surgimiento de lo que nosotros denominamos un petro-estado especulador, en el que actores del estado proclamaron haber jugado exitosamente en los mercados volátiles a nombre de la nación, como una nueva estrategia con la cual cultivar la legitimidad popular. Tales afirmaciones tomaron la forma de discursos y prácticas petro-populistas. Primero, la administración Correa caracterizó las nuevas relaciones contractuales con las compañías y el capital petroleros como evidencia del liderazgo de Correa en los complejos mercados petroleros, buscando legitimidad política para el estado a través de las percepciones de la capacidad personal de Correa para manejar el riesgo del mercado. Segundo, cuando los precios aumentaron, la administración Correa canalizó las rentas para construir obras púbicas espectaculares o “paisajes petro-populistas”, a título de verificación material del petro-liderazgo del presidente en los mercados volátiles. Trazamos el modo como el manejo del riesgo de mercado se convirtió en un factor organizativo clave del orden populista en Ecuador y analizamos cómo este caso ilumina las relaciones entre la política populista y las esferas económicas.

Palabras clave:

• Ecuador
• gobernanza
• precio del petróleo
• populismo de los recursos
• volatilidad

Acknowledgments

We thank Christian Lentz for his helpful comments on an early version of this article. Jeremy Rayner and Benjamin Rubin also provided insightful feedback on later versions. Elizabeth Havice provided suggestions that were invaluable for getting the article into its final stage. We are very grateful to James McCarthy and two anonymous reviewers for their patience, encouragement, and comments. Any shortcomings or omissions in the final product are our own responsibility.

Note

Notes

1 Although petro-states like Ecuador might share similar development dependencies and characteristics with mining countries (e.g., Bolivia), petro-dollars and oil wealth powerfully shape governance institutions in petro-states (Karl 1997). Petro-states, of course, might follow different paths. In Ecuador, the recent rise of the mining sector might lead to different modalities of dependence on extractivist economies, although this is still a nascent development (van Teijlingen et al. 2017; Vela-Almeida, Kolinjivadi, and Kosoy 2018). By the same token, mining-dependent countries also have the potential to become petro-states (Perreault and Valdivia 2010; Anthias 2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angus Lyall

ANGUS LYALL is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. E-mail: [email protected]. His current research examines the intersection of resource governance and urban expansion in Latin America, exploring how embodied postcolonial histories shape urban aspirations in rural spaces.

Gabriela Valdivia

GABRIELA VALDIVIA is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research focuses on the political ecology of natural resource governance in Latin America; how states, firms, and civil society appropriate and transform resources to meet their interests; and how capturing and putting resources to work transforms cultural and ecological communities.