SUİ412

Political Economy of Natural Resources

Faculty \ Department
School of Economics and Administrative Sciences \ Political Science and International Relations
Course Credit
ECTS Credit
Course Type
Instructional Language
3
6
Elective
English
Prerequisites
-
Programs that can take the course
The course is departmental elective for students of the Department of Political Science and International Relations. Students of other departments can take it as a faculty or university elective course.
Course Description
This course examines natural resources and particularly important problems in the production of energy supply sources, their distribution and consumption withinin the context of changes and continuties in the world energy market. The course is divided into 3 sections. The first section demonstrates current trends and important actors within the context of geographical distribution of hydrocarbon resources, other energy supply sources in the world energy market and increasing demand for energy. In the second section, current problems are analyzed through the concept of energy security by examining cooperation, rivalry, and conflict among states and non-state actors (multinational energy corporations, international organizations, domestic energy firms, related NGOS) that are questioned by different arguments of IPE theories. In the third section, theoratical arguments are applied to analyze actors' behavior or practices by examining current events and selected cases.
Textbook and / or References
Sources:
o IEA- International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook Report https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023
o IRENA- International Renewable Energy Agency, A New World: The Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation, A New World: The Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation
https://www.irena.org/publications/2019/Jan/A-New-World-The-Geopolitics-of-the-Energy-Transformation
o EIA- US Energy Information Administration, International Energy Statistics
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world
o Turkey, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Ulusal Enerji Planı, 2022
Required Readings:
• Dunn Hastings, Davis and Mark J.L. McClelland. “Shale gas and the revival of American power: debunking decline?” International Affairs, 89, 6, (2013): 1411-1428.
• Van De Graaf, Thijs and Michael Bradshaw, “Stranded wealth: rethinking the politics of oil in an age of abundance,” International Affairs 94: 6 (2018) 1309–1328.
• Nye, Joseph S. and David A. Welch., Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation: An Introduction to Theory and History. (Boston, London: Pearson, 2014): 273-281.
• İpek, Pınar, “The Role of Energy Security in Turkish Foreign Policy (2004-2016)”in Turkish Foreign Policy: International Relations, Legality and Global Reach, Pinar Gozen (ed.) Palgrave Macmillan US (2017): pp. 173-194.
• İpek, Pınar, "Turkey's Energy Security in Eurasia: Trade-offs or cognitive bias?" in Turkey's Pivot to Eurasia: Geopolitics and Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order, Seçkin Köstem and Emre Erşen (editors), New York and London: Routledge (2019): pp.129-146.
• Peter Newell. 2018. “Trasformismo or transformation? The global political economy of energy transitions, Review of International Political Economy, DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2018.1511448
• Colgan, Jeff D. “Oil and Revolutionary Governments: Fuel for International Conflict International Organization 64:4 (Fall 2010): 661-694.
• Anatole Boute. “Shaping the Eurasian Gas Market: The Geopolitics of Energy Market Regulation” Geopolitics, 28:5 (2023): 2042-2073.
• Chadwick, Christina M Stoelzel; Long, Andrew G. “Foreign Policy Alignment and Russia’s Energy Weapon” Foreign Policy Analysis 19: 2 (2023): 1-21.
• Skalamera, Morena. “The Geopolitics of Energy after the Invasion of Ukraine,” Washington Quarterly 46: (March):7-24.
• Ulrichsen, Kristian Coates, “Chapter 1- History of Gulf Security Structures, 1903–2003” in Insecure Gulf : The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era (Oxford University Press, 2011): 15-35.
• Terhalle, Maximilian. “Revolutionary Power and Socialization: Explaining the Persistence of Revolutionary Zeal in Iran’s Foreign Policy.” Security Studies 18, 3 (2009): 557-586.
• Ross, Michael. “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?” World Politics, 53, 3 (2001): 325-361.
• İpek, Pınar. “Oil and Intra-State Conflict in Iraq and Syria: Sub-State Actors and Challenges for Turkey’s Energy Security” Middle Eastern Studies, 53, 3, (2017): 406-419.
• Belgin San-Akca, S. Duygu Sever, Suhnaz Yilmaz. “Does natural gas fuel civil war? Rethinking energy security, international relations, and fossil-fuel conflict” Energy Research & Social Science 70 (2020): 1-12.
• Özgür, Hayriye Kahveci, “Eastern Mediterranean Hydrocarbons: Regional Potential, Challenges Ahead, and the ‘Hydrocarbon-ization’ of the Cyprus Problem,” Perceptions, 12, 2-3 (2017): 31-56.
• İpek, Pınar and Tibet Gür, “Turkey’s Isolation from the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum: ideational mechanisms and material interests in Energy Politics” Turkish Studies, 23, 1 (2022): 1-30.
• Milan Babić & Adam D. Dixon. “Decarbonising states as owners.” New Political Economy 28:4 (2023): 608-627.
• Matthew Paterson. ‘The End of the Fossil Fuel Age’? Discourse Politics and Climate Change Political Economy” New Political Economy, 26:6 (2021): 923-936.
• IRENA (2023), Geopolitics of the energy transition: Critical materials, International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi.
• Caroline Kuzemko ett al. “Russia’s war on Ukraine, European energy policy responses & implications for sustainable transformations.” Energy Research & Social Science 93 (2022): 102842.
• Mahmood Monshipouri. “The Middle East Post-Petroleum: Averting the Storm” Middle East Policy 17:3 (Fall 2019): 77-91.
• Emre Hatipoglu, Saleh Al Muhanna, Brian Efird. “Renewables and the future of geopolitics: Revisiting main concepts of international relations from the lens of renewables” Russian Journal of Economics 6 (2020): 358–373.
• Michael J. Albert. (2022). “The global politics of the renewable energy transition and the non-substitutability hypothesis: towards a ‘great transformation’? Review of International Political Economy, 29 (5): 1766-1781, DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2021.1980418
• Climate Transparency Report. 2022. “G20 Response to the Energy Crisis: Critical for 1.5C”
• Climate Transparency Report. 2022. Comparing G20 Climate Action: Turkey.
Course Objectives
This course aims to develop students' knowledge about current trends, changes and continuties in the world energy market through different theoretical arguments and concepts learned in the course and students' skills to analyze how cooperation, competition and conflict among states and non-state actors are shaped by questioning different arguments of IPE theories and their concepts.
Course Outcomes
1. Students will develop their knowledge about current trends, changes and continuities in the world energy market.
2. Students will develop their skills to analyze how observed changes and continuities in the world energy market are shaped by the interaction between energy market/geopolitics and actors given different concepts and arguments of IPE theories.
3. Students will analyze how cooperation, rivalry and conflict among states and non-state actors in selected cases can be examined by questioning different concepts and arguments of IPE theories in their reserach assignment.
Tentative Course Plan
Week 1: Introduction to the course, Energy Market and Different Energy Supply Sources, Producer and Consumer Countries
Week 2: World Energy Outlook Trends: Changes and Continuities
Week 3: States in World Energy Politics: Realism
Week 4: Markets and World Energy Politics: Liberalism
Week 5: World Energy Politics: Constructivism and Neo-Gramscianism
Week 6: Energy Security and International Conflict: Major Powers and Energy Geopolitics
Week 7: Petrostates and (In)stability in the Middle East: Intrastate conflicts
Week 8: Hydrocarbon Resources in the East Mediterranean Region: Conflict and Cooperation
Week 9: Energy Transition: Renewable Energy and Climate Change
Week 10: Energy Transition and Geopolitics
Week 11: Energy Transition, Critical Minerals and Global Politics: G20 countries in comparison
Week 12: Course review
Tentative Assesment Methods
• Quiz 45 %
• Research Assignment 40 %
• Participation 15 %
Program Outcome *
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Course Outcome
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