Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance
Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance
Tar Sands, Social Movements, and the Politics of Energy Infrastructure
In the late 2000s, when the oil sands industry proposed expanding its capacity to transport fossil fuel products, an unprecedented coalition of Indigenous nations and communities, environmental non-governmental organizations, grassroots groups, and municipal governments mobilized in response. Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance explores how these social movements challenged powerful corporate and government interests and reshaped the politics of energy infrastructure.
Amy Janzwood investigates campaign coalitions that were formed to oppose two mega pipeline projects: the expansion of Trans Mountain, which was ultimately completed; and Northern Gateway, which was never built. Drawing on a wide array of documents and in-depth insider interviews with oil executives, senior government officials, coalition organizers, and lawyers, she analyzes the strategic alliances and tactics that have empowered – and attempted to thwart – these movements. The campaigns effectively adapted their strategies to shifting legal, political, and economic conditions, maximizing their impact and wielding influence in ways that cannot be explained by political decisions or economic factors alone.
Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance is an ambitious study that reveals the complex reciprocal influence of social movements and socio-political context, underscoring the power of campaign coalitions to sustain resistance and shape government policy and industry practices.
Beyond audiences of scholars and students of comparative and Canadian environmental and energy politics and policy, Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance will appeal to policy-makers and activists interested in energy infrastructure and transitions, as well as in social movements.
Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance is the definitive account of anti-pipeline campaign coalitions in Western Canada over the last fifteen years, their strategies and influence, as well as their limitations and potential future trajectory. It is an important intervention that deserves to be widely read.
With an extensive assessment of multiple pipeline cases, Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance provides an excellent set of analyses for thinking about the politics, the factors driving the changes in the ways pipelines are sited and approved, and the mixed results that have emerged in Canada over the past decades.
Amy Janzwood has taken on one of the most pressing and contentious issues of our time — the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure as the climate crisis deepens. Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance is a deeply reported and compelling account of how social movements built and sustained opposition to the Trans Mountain and Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline projects, contributing to lengthy delays and cancellation. As shifting global dynamics invite new pipeline proposals and revive others, this timely book is both hopeful and cautionary.
Amy Janzwood is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and the Bieler School of Environment at McGill University. She is the chair of the steering committee of the Women and Inclusivity in Sustainable Energy Research (WISER) network, a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Political Science Association, and an associate editor of Earth System Governance. Her work has been published in such journals as Regulation and Governance, Critical Policy Studies, Energy Research and Social Science, and the Review of International Political Economy.
