Fossil Fuels and Democracy: A Critical Examination

Timothy Mitchell in his book is trying to explain the relationship between fossil fuels and democracy. Mitchell in his narrative reverses the so-called "oil curse" and instead of focusing on the oil money, he studied the processes of oil, the flows of transportation, the status workers had in the oil production and their democratic rights. As Mitchell claims in his introduction, he considers the democracies not as "carbon-copies" but as "carbon based"(p.5). He argues that the exploitation of the coal and oil led to the creation of political and financial systems that either can develop or limit democratic opportunities.(p.6) That is crucial for Mitchel's argument as he points out that the dependence of the world on oil has led to several crises such as the climate change and the "exhaustion of supplies." (p.6) One of the work's strengths is its ability to address different ideological paradigms and events of history. As Mitchell is a professor of Middle Eastern studies and his previous works were on Egypt, he discussed the relationship between democracy and

However, there are some gaps in his research as he did not analyse some crucial topics that he mentioned such as the climate change which is nowadays a vital issue in which the democratic governments should give a solution. It is interesting Mitchell's comment on this issue, which is one of the limits that derived from the relationship between oil and democracy, that the political systems that came out to control the coal and oil period might be unable to address the issues that will "end it."(p.7) Despite these flaws, it is a striking work that can urge other academics to follow this approach of "oil-curse" and fill any existing