The Observatori researcher Adrià Rivera Escartin (UOC) has recently published two articles.
The first, titled “Stability Source or Curse? Fossil Fuels and Algeria’s Regime Stability in the Light of the EU’s Green Transition,” was published in Mediterranean Politics.
Abstract: Rentier states that export hydrocarbons are stable when prices are high. They can subsidize basic goods, allocate resources among the ruling elite and co-opt opposition leaders. In contrast, when prices go down, they might face fiscal crises that oblige budget cuts and the use of repression to survive. It can thus be argued that hydrocarbons are both a stability source and curse for rentier states, a reality that poses a dilemma to elites: defending the rentier state or reform it. The two options can have dire implications for the regime. However, this much-studied trade off might be changing in the light of the so-called green transition, an intervening variable in the relation between regime stability and hydrocarbons. Using the Algerian case, the article illustrates to what extent this nexus has been affected by the European Grean Deal (EGD), the EU’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The article concludes that while rentier states might see opportunities for economic diversification through renewable energy in times of low hydrocarbon prices, when prices recover, path dependences and instability fears can be important barriers to reform. In the long term, policy inconsistencies can make hydrocarbons more of a curse than a stability source.
The second, co-authored with Fátima Fernández Fernández, is titled “Recalibrating the Local Lens: Drivers and Transformations of the European Union’s Territorial Agenda in the Southern Neighbourhood” and appeared in JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.
Abstract: Since its inception, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has incorporated a local lens in its engagement with Southern partners. However, the capacity of local authorities to enact the political autonomy expected by the European Union (EU) is distant from reality. The article mobilizes the concept of hegemonic narratives in the cases of Morocco and Tunisia to problematize the set of discourses that establish the common understanding of ‘the local’ in the ENP’s territorial agenda. We present three narratives that became hegemonic across ENP implementation: ‘the local’ as an agent of development, ‘the local’ as an agent of democratization and ‘the local’ as a provider of resilience. The evidence presented allows us to conclude that ‘the local’ acts as an empty signifier in the EU’s territorial agenda in its Southern Neighbourhood. Whilst these narratives have certainly served centralizing trends, they have also been mobilized by or in support of emerging actors that contest them.