Transforming Environmental Politics and Policy. Farnham, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. xii, 260 pp. (Figures, tables.) US$119.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-4094-2993-7.
Mainland Southeast Asian governments have often relied upon a conventional development paradigm to justify the widespread exploitation of finite natural resources, much of which are used to satiate growing regional energy demands. In Energy, Governance and Security, Adam Simpson tackles a series of important questions concerning the politics of energy security and governance in Thailand and Myanmar. With both countries serving as major sites of controversial energy projects, this ambitious book takes as its departure point the “paradox” that surfaces when the pursuit of “improved energy security” comes at the expense of the “environmental security of local communities” (5).
In interrogating the question of “how environmental politics is played out in both the states and transnational spaces of the less affluent South” (5), a key argument advanced here is that “a distinctive relationship [exists] between the level of authoritarian governance and the predominance of local or transnational activism under hybrid or authoritarian regimes” (186). Focusing on four large-scale projects—the Shwe Gas Pipeline and Salween Dams in Myanmar, and the Yadana Gas Pipeline and Thai-Malaysian Gas Pipeline in Thailand—Simpson provides a detailed, comparative study of how local and transnational activism have contributed to raising public scrutiny over these “high-impact” schemes and, in so doing, to filling governance gaps.
The book is comprised of six chapters. Chapter 2 lays out the book’s conceptual underpinnings, which centre on the notion of “activist environmental governance” (28). While a promising idea in some ways, it is not a particularly novel one. Engagement with existing scholarship on, for example, “rightful resistance,” “embedded advocacy” and “civil regulation” would have strengthened this chapter, or at least made clearer the specific theoretical contributions afforded by this model. That said, the book’s typology of the different actors involved in activist environmental governance—namely, emancipatory governance groups (EGG), compromise governance groups (CGG) and environmental governance state (EGS)—is helpful and well-presented.
Chapters 3 to 6 make up the empirical foundations of the study. Chapter 3 offers an overview of the Thai and Myanmar political situations, directing attention to how varying levels of authoritarianism and political competition at different points in time (i.e., the Thaksin period in Thailand and post-1990s Myanmar) have contributed to environmental insecurity. Although containing a meticulous account of environmental politics in these two countries, the chapter could be rendered more succinct, given how the bulk of it is comprised of background information that does not always have a direct bearing on the book’s arguments.
Chapter 4 examines the dynamics of local activism surrounding the aforementioned four energy projects to unpack the role and effectiveness of grassroots actors in engendering “emancipatory” governance. Pointing out how local activism in Myanmar was “extremely limited” (94) in contrast to the Thai case where “bottom-up” activism drove issue creation, Simpson draws upon an impressive array of primary source materials gained from interviews in the region. Indeed, it is in this respect that Energy, Governance and Security stands out. Given the political sensitivity surrounding energy issues in Myanmar and, to a lesser degree, Thailand, the novel perspectives distilled from these interviews are highly valuable, adding empirical substance to the discussion of contentious energy schemes on which reliable information does not readily exist.
Chapter 5 is, in a way, a peculiar contribution to the book. It explores the “central case study” of EarthRights International (ERI), a prominent transnational non-governmental organizations in the region. Simpson justifies this focus by arguing that ERI as an organization “straddling North and South … provide[s] a compelling case study of an [EGG] engaging in activism against environmental insecurity in the South” (124). To be sure, there is truth to this claim; yet, inclusion of the ERI case also creates a slight disjuncture in the book’s narrative flow. Moreover, considering how there is no cross-sectional study of the other organizations active in contesting the energy projects examined, this becomes problematic in methodological terms as well. Other EGGs or, even better, examples of CGGs and EGS ought to have been analyzed to reveal how they assisted or impeded activist environmental governance in comparison. That said, this chapter does reflect the extensive fieldwork that undergirds the book, providing an in-depth account of ERI’s “nuts and bolts” and broader contributions to environmental governance.
The focus of chapter 6 is on the nature and implications of transnational activism in Myanmar and Thailand. Here, Simpson suggests an interesting point: whereas local activism featured more prominently in the Thai cases, transnational activism proved to be a stronger dynamic in the Myanmar examples. Part of the explanation lies with the limitations faced by local NGOs. Due to the country’s restricted socio-political space, the activist diaspora based outside of Myanmar enjoyed greater freedom to maneuver and were thus capable of playing a bigger role.
The volume’s contribution to burgeoning literature on environmental governance in Southeast Asia lies primarily with its interviews, which yield fascinating insights into the state of environmental activism in the region. The author is also to be commended on his clear enthusiasm for the subject (9–10), though there is sometimes the risk of sounding “too” enthusiastic, such that the analysis appears skewed toward extolling the virtues of activist environmental governance. A more upfront discussion of the potential problems posed by civil society activism is needed. Also noticeably missing is a consideration of how the concept of human security fits in with the book’s overarching framework.
In short, while empirically satisfying, Energy, Governance and Security falls a bit short theoretically. Burdened by a convoluted analytical framework, the book struggles at times to convincingly relate its framework to its cases and arguments. This is evident in the conclusion, where the proposed “critical environmental security framework” (191) ends up obfuscating more than it reveals. Yet, its shortcomings notwithstanding, this book remains a thought-provoking contribution to existing scholarship. The insights and questions presented therein will be of certain interest to students of Southeast Asia and environmental politics.
Pichamon May Yeophantong
Princeton University, Princeton, USA
pp. 737-739