Nathan Andrews

McMaster University | McMaster · Department of Political Science

This volume brings together world-class scholars to explore international studies pedagogy. The first section focuses on worldviews and teaching worlds. Chapters in this section expose readers to different worldviews and methods that enable a more diverse set of considerations when thinking about the international and demonstrate a set of pedagogic...

Oil and gas (OG) resource extraction has adverse impacts on landscapes despite the socio-economic benefits that trickle down to society. Whereas many recent studies have focused on direct landscape change from OG activities, this study focuses on factors associated with the creation of high-impact OG seismic cutlines, geophysical survey paths that...

The quest to decolonize this or that has become quite popular these days. In some instances, it is even being applied to general institutional strategies on equity, diversity, and inclusion. But what really is at stake in this endeavor? With specific reference to what we teach and how we engage our pedagogy toward the subject at hand, we ask: What...

This chapter focuses on African Studies centers or programs abroad and their contribution to manufacturing Africa as a continent and subject of inquiry. By imagining the African Studies center/program as a site of knowledge production and dissemination, it specifically interrogates the role of whiteness and of African agency in teaching African Stu...

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is considered an important avenue through which petroleum corporations give back to their host communities and possibly address their negative impacts as a way to gain the social licence to operate. Based on fieldwork undertaken in the South-western coast of Ghana between 2014 and 2019, this chapter examines ho...

Many national governments, regional bodies and political parties in the Global North have advanced various versions of ‘Green New Deals’ (GNDs) designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions to meet climate change objectives. Taken together, these would involve a shift away from fossil fuels and an increase in energy from solar and wind sources as well a...

States have historically sought to position (sometimes re-imagine) extractive activities as presenting an opportunity for broader societal goals to be met. This positioning typically entails the need to convince social actors that the continuation of resource extraction is beneficial despite the increasing recognition of its socio-environmental cos...

Over the past decade, there has been a new “decolonial turn,” albeit less related than before to land and political independence. “To decolonize” is now associated with something less tangible and often under-defined. We argue that scholars, especially Western ones, should avoid depoliticizing the expression “decolonizing” by using it as a buzzword...

The large-scale acquisition of land by investors intensified following the 2007/2008 triple crises of food, energy, and finance. In the years that followed, tens of millions of hectares of land were leased or sold for agricultural investment. This phenomenon has resulted in a growing body of scholarship that seeks to explain trends, institutional r...

Oil and gas discovery in Ghana since 2007 has attracted the interest of many international and local actors, including transnational corporations. Despite an expected ‘oil boom’, the industry has perpetuated exclusion and poverty in communities in the neighbourhood of extractive activities in a manner that is particularly gendered, which is a refle...

Discussions about diversifying the discipline of international relations (IR) are often met with limited evidence in practice. Employing the concepts of epistemic oppression and academic dependency, this article contributes to filling the existing knowledge gap by examining what the pedagogical practices of IR professors, particularly in terms of s...

Objectives: To assess existing evidence and identify gaps in the integrative framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for their potential to advance cross-sectoral perspectives and actions that connect health equity with the land-water-energy nexus in a watershed context. Methods: Five bibliographic databases were searched from 2016 to...

A critical scholarship within the International Relations and Comparative Politics scholarship continues to challenge the conventional view that upheld the extractive sector in developing countries as the space where global technocratic norms take root irrespective of socio-economic bargains and contestations. Through an in-depth account of the pol...

While there is scholarship focused on the nexus between resource extraction and development, further examination is needed of how the harms and benefits of extraction are differentiated among different stakeholders based on factors such as their access to power, authority over decision-making, social status,and gender. This article combines theoret...

Centering temporality when discussing mineral extraction often points to an understanding of a mining life cycle that includes phases such as contracting, exploration, production, and closure. To center temporality when analyzing mining suggests both prioritizing and rethinking the time scale that shapes ongoing discourses and practices regulating...

The complexities and scope of environmental issues have not only outpaced the capacities and responsiveness of traditional political actors but also generated new innovations, constituencies, and approaches to governing environmental problems. In response, comparative environmental politics (CEP) has emerged as a vibrant and growing field of schola...

There is a large body of literature that examines different dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Africa, with many focusing on the false promises of these corporate initiatives. Contrary to simplistic claims of CSR being merely window‐dressing, however, this paper reveals that although several rhetorical proclamations underpin the...

A quarter of global oil production comes from offshore fields and about 60% of internationally-traded oil travels by tankers. The relationship between oil, fisheries, and coastal communities is documented primarily through case studies in individual jurisdictions and via the impacts of oil spills. Yet, the implications of oil development for fisher...

This chapter contributes to the debate on the challenges of teaching International Relations (IR) in a globalized world in two ways: First, it adds to existing critical self-reflection in IR by interrogating a priori assumptions about knowledge and the world. We suggest that as a space for understanding increasingly complex global realities, IR sho...

“This is an exemplary political economy analysis of what has happened across Africa since the contemporary global land grabbing occurred more than a decade ago. While the topic and questions addressed may sound familiar to many readers who have been tracking the issue over the last decade, this volume provides a much needed up to date information,...

This chapter underscores the relevance of international political economy (IPE) to this book’s contents by discussing the transnational nature of large-scale land acquisitions and the multi-scalar networks that permit and accompany such processes of acquisition (or ‘grabbing’). We connect the question of land to IPE to uncover the polycentric forms...

What can we learn from an analysis of the transnational land rush in Africa? And, what may be beyond it? To answer these questions, this chapter starts by examining the context of large-scale land acquisitions in various African countries, including those not written about in this volume. Then, we compare and contrast the various case studies exami...

This book gives a comprehensive overview of Ghana’s hydrocarbon economy using actor network and assemblage theories to contest the methodological nationalism of mainstream accounts of the resource curse in resource-rich countries. Drawing upon recent field research focused on Ghana’s oil and gas sector and utilizing the theoretical framework of act...

The role of sustainable development in the gold mining industry has received much attention in the last decade. Yet, implementing sustainable development in this industry has become a complex exercise. Cognizant of the shortfalls in existing frameworks such as the lack of supervision and accountability, we propose a new framework to help enhance th...

In this article, we analyse the factors underpinning the shift towards hybrid security governance in Africa. Extant scholarship largely attributes this shift to broader global processes, such as histories of colonialism, neoliberalism and transformations in global governance, which have served to legitimize the role of private authority in security...

Implicit in the predominant dogma that upholds transparency as the panacea for the ill-effects of resource endowment is a belief that public disclosure undermines the predatory landscape for elite patronage and clientelistic politics. Nonetheless, there is surprisingly little empirical information about how reforms geared towards promoting transpar...

While extant assessments of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) have focused on institutional and regulatory regimes, such evaluations have largely tended to depoliticise institutions. This article argues that a more robust understanding of EITI processes must give central attention to historically situated political structures...

Ghana’s Petroleum Revenue Management Act 815 (amended to Act 893 in 2015) established the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) in 2011 with the mandate to ensure accountability and transparency in the management and usage of oil and gas revenue. This paper critically examines the activities and operations of the PIAC from 2011 vis-à-...

In order to reduce environmental degradation and contribute more to wider sustainable development efforts, mining and oil companies in Ghana undertake different projects in affected communities, such as building schools and providing scholarships, as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR). Yet, evidence from recent studies suggests tha...

In different fields of study, scholars interested in making a positive difference in the lives of their research communities insist on engaging policy makers and activists in their work. Paulo Freire, one of the most widely known public intellectuals, asserts that praxis enables critical thought, awareness and collaborative action for emancipation...

The global rush to develop the ‘blue economy’ risks harming both the marine environment and human wellbeing. Bold policies and actions are urgently needed. We identify five priorities to chart a course towards an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable blue economy.

Evidence from around the world has shown that oil discovery could be a curse or a blessing. In some countries such as Canada, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and others, oil has proven to be a blessing. On the contrary, some sub-Saharan African countries such as Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea are experiencing what is kno...

Evidence from around the world has shown that oil discovery could be a curse or a blessing. In some countries such as Canada, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and others, oil has proven to be a blessing. On the contrary, some sub-Saharan African countries such as Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea are experiencing what is kno...

Andrews explores the historical trajectories of gold mining, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and of the process of ‘responsibilization’, which the chapter describes as an act that has resulted in the elevation of corporate knowledge, power, and capital over the social order. The background information provided in this chapter sets the tone fo...

Andrews engages with two important concepts—social licence to operate and corporate citizenship—to investigate the positive image corporations have created for themselves through the CSR discourse. This is done by examining a variety of information from corporations’ websites, sustainability reports, and personal interviews conducted with several s...

Andrews explore how responsibilization occurs at the global level through the enactment of a corporation that abides by voluntary international ‘best practice’, and how such manifestation of the CSR discourse institutionalizes unaccountability. The chapter uses the UN Global Compact and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as exam...

In this chapter, Andrews assesses how the CSR discourse speaks the corporation into being in specific ways for example through the activities of the Newmont Ahafo Development Foundation (NADeF). The goal is to showcase how such an award-winning CSR activity facilitates the enactment of a corporation that is concerned about the long-term development...

Andrews delves deeper into the grassroots voices, facilitated by insights from in-depth field research in host communities, to examine the gender-specific perspectives around CSR and mining ramifications in Ghana. The chapter intends to not only show how CSR constitutes its responsibilized object (i.e. the corporation), but also expose the direct i...

In this concluding chapter, Andrews first provides some modest direction in terms of what characteristics a gendered reconstitution of CSR might embrace. The idea of ‘engendering’ CSR is based on the discussion in Chapter 4 and is primarily drawn from women respondents’ own self-identified notions of how to make things better. Secondly, Andrews ref...

This book critically examines the practice and meanings of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how the movement has facilitated a positive and somewhat unquestioned image of the global corporation. Drawing on extensive fieldwork material collected in Ghanaian communities located around the project sites of Newmont Mining Corporation and Kinro...

Despite the rise and fall of the central role given to states in national development discussions, there is an emerging trend in Africa where several countries are harnessing their natural resources – at least in policy – for broad-based development. Particularly in the energy sector, there is the growing popularity of what is now termed ‘petro-dev...

This article considers development interventions in the extractive resource sector undertaken by three African countries (Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda) to understand how they fit into the “developmental state” framework originally used to explain the miraculous economic development East Asia experienced after World War II. We focus on interventions a...

Africa and the Millennium Development Goals: Progress, Problems and Prospects, edited by Charles Mutasa and Mark Paterson London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. 248. £23·95 (pbk). - Volume 55 Issue 2 - Nathan Andrews

Regime theorists argue that international regimes and institutions are based on principles, norms and decision-making procedures that constitute a set of patterned behaviours around which expectations converge. The notion of these institutionalised ‘logics of appropriateness’ has led to the proliferation of many global norms, such as the UN Global...

In spite of the growing popularity of this endeavor, it can be argued that it is not a corporation's primary objective to advance development in areas where they operate. However, due to prevailing community concerns and the negative ramifications of their activities on local livelihoods, they tend to embrace this idea both in discourse and actual...

Abstract: Ghana’s small-scale mining sector faces complex challenges, including environmental degradation and pollution, loss of life and increased health risks, despite several years of implementation of small-scale mining laws. These challenges, generally, are known to have escalated because of illegal small-scale mining, locally known as “galams...

This paper engages with non-Western, specifically African, scholarship and insight with the goal of highlighting the importance of African contributions to IR theorising. We highlight the Western dominance in IR theorising and examine the inadequacy of the major analytical constructs provided by established IR theory in capturing and explaining shi...

Within the current global atmosphere where a universally accepted police force is nonexistent, there are several voluntary norms and codes of conduct that exist to guide how corporations behave worldwide. These have come as a result of many years of poor performance in the areas of social, financial, and environmental responsibility. Such norms are...

Transnational standards for disclosure have become a defining feature of global governance and sound economic development, yet little is known about their effectiveness. This study statistically explores the efficacy of such standards for the important case of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international non-government...

Corporations, Civil Society and Disclosure: A Case Study of the EITI by James Van Alstine and Nathan Andrews assesses one of the current multi-stakeholder initiatives in the global extractives industry, namely, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). As an arrangement that is growing in popularity as an international standard for...

In Ghana, an artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) activity called galamsey is considered illegal because operators have not formally registered their sites with the government. Because of recent cases of the involvement of non-Ghanaian nationals in this activity, the government has established the Inter-Ministerial Task Force Against Illegal Mini...

Since coming into being in the year 2000, the normative consensus that solidified the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has been one that has been forceful due to the number of nation-states and international organizations that have rallied around the issue. The progressive nature of the MDGs and their integral role in mobilising...

The post-2015 agenda looks promising. Even prior to digging into this agenda, there is a possibility that some African countries will achieve a fair number of the MDGs to some extent just before 2015. Nevertheless, the deliberative process surrounding the goals failed to properly include the voices of marginalized and indigenous populations even th...

This volume examines the impact of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on Africa’s development post-2015. It assesses the current state of the MDGs in Africa by outlining the successes, gaps and failures of the state goals, including lessons learned. A unique feature of the book is the exposition on post-MDG’s agenda for Africa’s development. C...

Because of the absence of evidence to show for its utility, the notion of ‘development’ has been fraught with many debates over the years. This paper is concerned with re-examining the future of development studies, based on its past and present trajectories. The argument here is that development may be useful if its norms and practices become cont...

The discovery of oil comes with many positive expectations from governments and citizens, but evidence of conflict- and problem-ridden resource-rich countries defies conventional knowledge—which suggests that abundance in resources culminates in socioeconomic blessings. Ghana recently joined the list of oil-producing countries, with oil production...

International Relations ( ir ) scholars and students are often presented with four (sometimes five) ‘great debates’ that characterise the ‘state of the discipline’. However, Robert Cox’s 1981 article in Millennium simplified the discussion into two binaries: problem-solving theory vs critical theory. While this configuration has been influential, i...

From a multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary standpoint, this book challenges the teleological and unidirectional notions of development embodied in the idea of modernisation or ‘progress’ and offers a critique of the tendency to consider Africa as a basket case, which often gives the Western ‘self’ an undeserving privilege and superiority over t...

A simple dictionary definition of 'freedom' shows that it implies the power to think, act, and speak as one deems fit without any hindrance. It also denotes the power of 'being' or 'doing'. When many countries in Africa gained independence in the 1950s and beyond, this notion of freedom was what they all aspired to. And although many countries have...

Ghana joined the list of oil-producing countries with the export of its first oil from the Jubilee oilfield in January 2011. President John Atta Mills's statement drawing attention to the potential paradigm shift as well as risks that the discovery of oil and gas imposes not only speaks to the complexity of extractive-industry-engendered developmen...

Many developing countries, including Ghana, have received substantial amounts of foreign aid inflows for almost five decades. The benefits associated with such receipts have however been scarce. It is now a general knowledge that aid has not yet yielded expected ends. It has been argued that Ghana's underdevelopment is attributable to colonialism a...

Evidence of ineffective foreign assistance is widespread in Africa. The debate on how aid can be effective and contribute to Africa's development is, however, still ongoing without any clear way forward. This paper adopts a deductive approach to explaining aid and development in Africa. There is a high volume of literature on the impact of foreign...

/ The EITI has been held up as an initiative capable of strengthening governance by improving both government and business transparency in natural resource extraction. At the heart of this desire for transparency is the believe that better management of natural resource revenues will enhance trust, address endemic poverty and corruption, and preven...