Transparency in energy governance: The extractive industries transparency initiative and publish what you pay campaign

In this chapter, James Van Alstine focuses on the dynamics of transparency in the extractive industry sector and in global energy governance. He examines the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and Publish What You Pay campaign (PWYP), both of which target private actors investing in resource-rich developing countries to reveal payments to host governments to exploit oil, gas, and mineral resources. Van Alstine’s analysis highlights how, given increasing concerns about the societal impacts of the extractive industries, a discursive shift embracing transparency has occurred within the international community and some resource-rich governments. Using the specific case of oil revenue disclosure in Ghana, he highlights the hybrid (mandatory-voluntary) character, and rescaling of sovereignty and authority that shape transparency’s effects in this case. As he documents, these effects are mediated by the challenges to disclosure posed by the unique material qualities of oil, as compared to other extractive resources.

Van Alstine J (2014), Transparency in Global Environmental Governance: Critical Perspectives, pp.249-270.