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This article focuses on the use of narratives to understand how claims for democratic participation in conflicts over resource extraction are being countered by national state and corporate actors. Theoretically, the analysis is based on Gramsci’s notion of consent and a dialectical understanding of narratives and agency, whereby narratives are understood as contingent products of social interaction. It is argued that in order to become powerful, and to impede the institutionalization of democratic participation and prevent a shift in the power balances in the resource sector, a mixture of different narratives is applied. Core narratives are adjusted to protesters’ claims, are complemented by new storylines to react to changing contexts, and are mixed in order to organize consent in different settings and among different audiences. Empirically, the study focuses on ongoing disputes over popular consultations on mining, fracking and oil exploitation in Colombia. The data for the analysis consists of semi-structured interviews, transcripts of two public and live-streamed hearings, and articles from two leading Colombian newspapers. The period investigated covers the years 2013 (June) to 2018 (November).

The chapter analyzes the development expectations and the rise, as well as failure and demise, of neo-extractivism in South America since the beginning of the 2000s. In particular, we focus on the structural background as well as on the underlying preconditions of the neo-extractivist development model. The chapter adds another aspect to the ongoing discussion on dependency and neo-extractivism that has hardly been considered so far: the prevalence and relevance of rent. Following the concept introduced in the introduction of this volume, we identify a particular mechanism of dependency in the effects of economic rents, understood as a specific form of economic surplus emerging from monopolies, ownership, market restrictions, and the concentration of political power. Rents are an internal as well as external mechanism of dependency, and societies that essentially depend on rent for their social reproduction face serious challenges in approaching diversification and abandoning their rent-based economic sectors, and thereby freeing themselves of dependency. For the dependency research program it must therefore be said in the future: bring rent in.

The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. We bring a critical social science perspective to this framework through the notion of societal boundaries and aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the social nature of thresholds. We start by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of planetary boundaries from a social science perspective. We then focus on capitalist societies as a heuristic for discussing the expansionary dynamics, power relations, and lock-ins of modern societies that impel highly unsustainable societal relations with nature. While formulating societal boundaries implies a controversial process ‒ based on normative judgments, ethical concerns, and socio-political struggles ‒ it has the potential to offer guidelines for a just, social-ecological transformation. Collective autonomy and the politics of self-limitation are key elements of societal boundaries and are linked to important proposals and pluriverse experiences to integrate well-being and boundaries. The role of the state and propositions for radical alternative approaches to well-being have particular importance. We conclude with reflections on social freedom, defined as the right not to live at others’ expense. Toward the aim of defining boundaries through transdisciplinary and democratic processes, we seek to open a dialogue on these issues.

The article explores the political effects of popular consultations as a means of direct democracy in struggles over mining. Building on concepts from participatory and materialist democracy theory, it shows the transformative potentials of processes of direct democracy towards democratization and emancipation under, and beyond, capitalist and liberal democratic conditions. Empirically the analysis is based on a case study on the protests against the La Colosa gold mining project in Colombia. The analysis reveals that although processes of direct democracy in conflicts over mining cannot transform existing class inequalities and social power relations fundamentally, they can nevertheless alter elements thereof. These are for example the relationship between local and national governments, changes of the political agenda of mining and the opening of new spaces for political participation, where previously there were none. It is here where it’s emancipatory potential can be found.

The recent global 'resource boom' manifests in a rise of national budgets as well as GDPs of many states. However, the trend towards extractivism as a development strategy across the global South has also social and political effects. When state revenues, growth and national well-being depend on resource extraction, societal and institutional norms and state–society relations are shaped in specific and contested ways. Struggles over land and mining have thus increased around the world, with a rising number of non-state and state actors being involved. This introduction outlines a framework of analysing struggles over land and mining in the context of global transformation processes as well as the relevance of these processes for state–society relations.

This chapter analyses the interrelations between struggles over mining and scalar configurations of political power. It draws on an anti-mining protest in the department of Tolima, Colombia, where the South African company AngloGold Ashanti is currently preparing to open an industrial gold mine. The chapter aims to show that struggles over mining are located within the interactions between state structures and the agency of local actors. It is shown that scalar configurations of power, for example political institutions, de- and recentralisation policies and legal frameworks, constrain and enable social engagement in struggles over mining. At the same time, through the exertion of participatory citizenship, actors opposing an industrial mining project contest the scaled geography of state power. Theoretically, the chapter combines insights from debates on the politics of scale, and from critical development and democracy studies.

The aim of this text is to make sense of the emerging political-institutional, territorial, and socio-ecological dynamics and contradictions of neo-extractivism in Latin America in the context of global capitalist development. In contrast to some existing literature, we argue that the term ‘neo-extractivism’ should not be restricted to countries with progressive governments but be applied to all Latin American societies that, since the 1970s and especially since the year 2000, depend predominantly on the exploitation and exportation of nature. We argue that the often vague usage of the term neo-extractivism can be strengthened when it is seen in line with dominant development models. Therefore we refer to regulation theory and its historical heuristic of different phases of capitalist development. This enables us to look at the temporal-spatial interdependencies between shifting socio-economic and technological developments, world market structures, and political-institutional configurations that characterize neo-extractivism across scales and beyond national borders.