Scalar Politics in North American Energy Governance

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1 Scalar Politics in North American Energy Governance 1

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4 Transnational Capital Local Decision-Making 4

5 Scale Scale has no single definition, and in recent years has been the object of much theorizing. The traditional definition in cartography refers to map resolution. All maps represent the world by reducing the size and diversity of its component spaces for visual display, digitally or on paper. Cartographic scale expresses the mathematical relationship between the map and the Earth, usually denoted as a representative fraction. Each type of social and environmental diversity has its own best resolution in terms of cartographic resolution in terms of cartographic representation; thus, the choice of cartographic scale depends on the problem at hand. To visualize US state variation in the enforcement of environmental policies, we need the familiar small-scale map of the country with state borders, while determining whether point source pollution released into a river caused downstream lymphomas requires a large-scale map. Scale The second major definition is operational or methodological. This is the scale or resolution of data collection, with the familiar cascade from micro (body) to macro (globe). Tied to this type of scale are various analytical complexities, including the claims that: (a) social patterns and processes can be sorted according to their scale of operation and, as a result, it is important to ensure an appropriate match between research questions and the scale of analysis when developing a research design; (b) some processes may operate at multiple scales at once, and as a result, attention should be paid to their operational distinctiveness at particular scales and to the mechanisms that define their modifications from one resolution to the next; and (c) any scaled process can intersect with other processes operating at any other scale, often in complex ways that attenuate, amplify or destabilize their operation.... In the study of coupled social and natural systems, the complications of (a) to (c) above may be operative. 5

6 Scale A third aspect of scale is to recognize what has been variously called its social production or social construction. In this view, spatial scales do not, as implied above, rest as fixed platforms for social activity and processes that connect up or down to other hierarchical levels, but are instead outcomes of those activities and processes, to which they in turn contribute through a spatially uneven and temporally unfolding dynamic. This recursive relationship between social processes producing scales and scales affecting the operation of social processes is one aspect of the sociospatial dialectic: the idea that social processes and space and hence scales mutually intersect, constitute, and rebound upon one another in an inseparable chain of determinations. Over the past two decades, this view of scale has generated some of the most productive and novel research in human geography. Scale This literature advanced recognition that: (a) the production of scale is inherently political; (b) scalar politics are produced not only by the organization and activities of states, but also corporate and civil society actors; (c) as power operates in dispersed forms in contemporary capitalism, there is a need to develop more complex accounts of the relationship between social processes and spatial outcomes. 6

7 Scalar Politics in Energy Governance Scalar politics and determinations of the relevant jurisdiction (i.e. provincial vs federal authority) Scalar politics and the constitution of jurisdiction (i.e. constructing new forms of authority in resource governance) Scalar politics and the determination of the relevant objects of governance (i.e. defining what bodies and activities should be controlled) Scalar politics and the determination of the relevant modes of conducting governance (i.e forms of public participation, responsibilities of development proponent) Scalar politics and determinations of the relevant jurisdiction 7

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14 Scalar politics and the constitution of jurisdiction 14

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17 Geel Enterprises Scalar politics and the determination of the relevant objects of governance 17

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22 Scalar politics and the determination of the relevant modes of conducting energy governance 22

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