“Extractive Industry, Policy Innovations, and Civil Society Movement in Southeast Asia: An Introduction”

Abstract

Said innovative policy and influencing movements, the circumstance of governing natural resources has been changing in the last decade. Along with the wave of democratization in the late 1990s, the global norms of transparency and accountability reach new leverage today, including in Southeast Asia. The norms ignite the active participation of civil societies in controlling extractive governance – a praxis that never been occurred in two or three decades ago. Meanwhile, the governments require people active participation to advance people trust and political legitimation.

Innovative policy and influencing movements stand at the central argumentations of this book. Perceive as an introduction, this book denotes contributions on the extractive industry governance by using the lenses of civil society movements to acquaint intricacy of the sectors. There is a “resource curse” or paradox of plenty refers to the paradox that countries with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes. Therefore, the civil engagement has been perceived as a tool to ensure the benefit of extractive industries run for the greatest benefit of the people, as well as mitigates the risk and undesirable impacts of the extractive operations.

Throughout the selected articles, the book addresses on how civil societies engage in the extractive industries governance and through what mechanisms. Instead of outlining resource revenues management as the crucial aspects to be monitored by the citizens, this book rather highlights political perspective to challenge conventional understanding that extractive industries are pure – exclusively – economic affairs. The analysis convinces that extractive industry is highly political since they draw elites into the core decision-making. The high intensity of money and high technology within sectors subsequently renders those activities beyond the reach of the public. Thus, strong civil societies with the active participation are required to undermine oligarch notions and miss use power of the extractive sectors.

The discussion of civil society engagements in this book is divided into process and results. The selected cases depict experiences from the local, national, and transnational contexts enrich the discussion and provide civil society movements in a broader sense. The multi-governance perspectives are used to picture the multiple factors enabling the movements, including various challenges and opportunities for the engagements. The elaboration on the book’s content will become the entry point to the more critical discussion in the subsequent of this review.