Political Science Environmental Policy
Fracking Uncertainty
Hydraulic Fracturing and the Provincial Politics of Risk
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2024
- Category
- Environmental Policy, General, Comparative Politics
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781487552695
- Publish Date
- Sep 2024
- List Price
- $34.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781487552688
- Publish Date
- Sep 2024
- List Price
- $85.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781487552701
- Publish Date
- Aug 2024
- List Price
- $34.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Hydraulic fracturing – fracking – is an unconventional extraction technique used in the oil and gas industry that has fundamentally transformed global energy politics. In Fracking Uncertainty, Heather Millar explains variation in Canadian provincial policy approaches, which range from pro-development regulation to moratoria and outright bans. Millar argues that although regulatory designs are shaped by governments’ desires to seek out economic benefits or protect against environmental harms, policy makers’ perceptions of said benefits and/or harms are mediated through socially constructed narratives about uncertainty and risk.
Fracking Uncertainty offers in-depth case studies of regulatory development in British Columbia, Alberta, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Drawing on media analysis and interviews with government officials, industry representatives, academics, and environmental advocates, Millar demonstrates how risk narratives foster distinctive forms of learning in each province, leading to different regulatory reforms.
About the author
Heather Millar is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick.