Analysis Of The Bp Oil Disaster

The Bp oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest environmental disaster in the US history. This accident explains more than just an oil rig “accident” caused by either human error, mechanical malfunction or poor engineering .In this article I will use Susan Strange articles and discuss how power operated in the situation .Further analysis will be done on the history of BP corporate culture and who was to be blamed for the accident . A discussion will also be done on the way the Obama administration handled the situation , who is to blamed for the accident and how should the compensation costs be covered.
Before discussing about who is to be blamed for the accident, it is important to talk about the corporate culture of the company involved (BP) in this catastrophic accident. In the article ,states, firms and diplomacy ,Susan talks about “why government choose firms as partners.“ Susan placed much importance on the corporate history of a firm as a deciding factor of which firm to choose from . She further goes on to argue that a thorough understanding should be made about the relative strengths and weakness of a firm before allowing them to operate in the state.” As much attention should be paid to the corporate history and character……”( Strange,1992, p.11).
BP had the reputation among the OSHA (occupation safety and health administration) as being the “Renegade Refiner” (Freudennburg & Gramliing,2011 , p. 42). The following key accidents mentioned below contributed to BP’ s status as having one of the worst safety record in the industry as highlighted in Kocieniewski (2010), Fredenburg and Grampling (2011), and by Isikoff and Hirsh (2010):
15 workers were killed when a Bp oil refinery exploded in Texas in 2005. The chemi...

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... on the structure and operation of governments. Even Luke in his third dimensional of power talks about decision making and control over power .” Decisions are choices consciously and intentionally made by individuals between alternatives, whereas the bias of the system can be mobilized.” ( Lukes, 2005,p.25).
As 4 years pass the deepwater oil production seem to be heading back to the business-as-usual. Rarely any of the advices put forward by the Deep Water Commissions has been initiated by the Congress ( Ladd, 2011).Federal permits have been given to 8 more drilling projects. Moreover , BP itself is asking permission to commence its operations at 10 existing deepwater wells, while surprisingly Transocean Ltd granted its upper management enormous salary for achieving for the “ best year in safety performance in company history” ( Albertt,2011,p A-2).