Dash for Gas: Climate Change, Hegemony and the Scalar Politics of Fracking in the UK
| Author | Christopher Wright,Jacqueline Kirk,Daniel Nyberg |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12291 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 29, 235–251 (2018)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12291
Dash for Gas: Climate Change, Hegemony
and the Scalar Politics of Fracking
in the UK
Daniel Nyberg, Christopher Wright1and Jacqueline Kirk2
The University of Newcastle Business School, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia,
1The University of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia, and
2University of Leicester,School of Business, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Corresponding author email: christopher.wright@sydney.edu.au
This paper investigates the political contestation over hydraulic fracturing of shale gas,
or ‘fracking’, in the UK. Based on an analysis of four public inquiries, it shows how both
proponents and opponents of fracking employedscaling to mobilize interests by connect-
ing (or disconnecting) fracking to spatial and temporal scales. The analysis explains how
a fossil fuel hegemony was reproducedby linking local and specific benefits to nationally
or globally recognized interests such as employment, energy security and emission reduc-
tions. The paper contributes to recent debates on environmental political contestation by
showing how scaling enables the linkage of competing interests by alternating between
spatial (e.g. local vs. global) and temporal (e.g. short term vs. long term) horizons. The
authors argue that scaling allows dominant actors to uphold contradictory positions on
climate change, which contributes to explaining the current disastrous political climate
impasse.
Introduction
Over recent decades, climate change has rapidly
emerged as a pressing political, social and eco-
nomic concern. Two centuries of fossil-fuel-based
industrialization have altered the chemistry of the
atmosphere and oceans in ways that threaten the
complex web of life on this planet. These ac-
tions have already increased average global tem-
peratures by more than 1 degree Celsius above
pre-industrial levels (Mann, 2014), with projected
warming likely to exceed 4 degrees Celsius later
this century (IPCC, 2013). The physical impacts of
this human-induced climate perturbation include
storms, droughts and wildfires of increasing feroc-
ity, the melting of ice-caps and glaciers, rising sea-
levels, ocean acidification and widespread species
extinction. Indeed, scientists suggest these levels
of climate change are probably incompatible with
continued human civilization (New et al., 2011).
However, meaningful responses to the climate
crisis remain piecemeal and insucient. A key
part of the problem relates to the need to radically
reduce fossil fuel use if the world is to avoid
dangerous climate change, while national govern-
ments and key industries remain tied to the growth
of fossil-fuel-driven economies. Thus, rather than
stepping back from the abyss, our economic and
political masters double down on the fossil fuels
bet. This ‘creative self-destruction’ is evident in
escalating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and
the promotion of ever more innovative ways to
extract fossil fuels through, for example, deep-
water and Artic oil drilling, tar sands processing
and hydraulic fracturing of shale gas (Wright and
Nyberg, 2015).
An important characteristic of the complexity
of climate change is that practices and policies
operate on dierent spatial and temporal hori-
zons. Climate change as a physical phenomenon
C2018 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
236 D. Nyberg, C. Wright and J. Kirk
operates at a planetary scale, while human re-
sponses remain tied to national, regional and
organizational processes in which dierent actors
seek to minimize actions that impede their short-
term interests (Levy and Spicer, 2013; Slawinski
et al., 2017). This scaling down of climate change
into immediate and local practices is evident in na-
tional and regional political debates over resource
use, industry development and economic growth
(Bulkeley and Newell, 2015). Government and
corporate responses to climate change thus high-
light the centrality of spatial and temporal scales
in the politics of resource use and sustainability.
In this paper we explore how the political pro-
cess of scaling is carried out by actors in a national
debate overthe future development of a new fossil-
fuel industry in the UK: hydraulic fracturing of
shale gas (also known as ‘fracking’). Frackinglinks
local activities to planetary consequences (fossil
fuels account for about 65% of all global anthro-
pogenic GHG emissions (IPCC, 2014)). Impor-
tantly, however, the decisions about whether and
how such resources are exploitedhinge on political
contestations at local, regional, industry and na-
tional levels. We analyse four public inquiries and
subsequent reports debating fracking in the UK.
The analysis shows how scaling is employed to
mobilize support for, or resistance towards, frack-
ing through spatial and temporal connections and
disconnections. Our findings explain how political
and business elites maintain the fossil fuel hege-
mony by connecting dierent spatial and tempo-
ral scales to financial interests, energy security and
even climate change concerns.
We make three contributions. First, we con-
tribute to discussions on sustainability in organi-
zation and management theory (OMT) (Banerjee,
2003; Shrivastava, 1995), by explaining the con-
tinuous justification of fossil fuels. Fracking is a
unique and valuablecase in that a fossil fuel is used
pragmatically to address concerns about carbon
emissions. Second, we contribute to OMT debates
on corporate political activity and environmen-
tal contestation (Barley, 2010; Levy and Egan,
2003; Maguire and Hardy, 2009), by showing
how spatial and temporal scales are employed to
mobilize support for a dominant position. We add
to this literature by explaining how the complex-
ity around environmental issues such as climate
change enable political manoeuvring by construct-
ing dierent scales. Third, and more specifically,
we contribute to the emerging neo-Gramscian
literature within OMT by employing scaling to
explain the workings of equivalence claims among
dierent and fragmented interests (Dey, Schneider
and Maier, 2016; Nyberg, Spicer and Wright,
2013; van Bommel and Spicer, 2011). Dierent
interests can be accommodated by constructing
scales to create overlap among dierences: for ex-
ample, the claim that fracking supports both local
employment and global action on climate change.
Climate change politics
In response to early critique of OMT’s lack of
engagement with climate change (Goodall, 2008),
there is now a growing body of work examin-
ing organizational processes underlying climate
change (in)action (Howard-Grenville et al., 2014;
Slawinski et al., 2017; Wittneben et al., 2012;
Wright et al., 2013). This literature has sought to
explain how business corporationshave responded
to climate change in terms of market, regulatory
and reputational risk (Homan, 2005), and to
what extent organizations and managers are able
to balance the competing tensions of market and
environmental needs (Van der Byl and Slawinski,
2015; Whiteman, Walker and Perego, 2013).
Failure to take eective action in mitigating GHG
emissions has resulted in more critical analyses
trying to explain humanity’s fossil fuel addiction
(Levy and Spicer, 2013), as well as the limitations
of a reliance on business and market responses to
the climate crisis (Wright and Nyberg, 2017).
A prevalent conceptualization in OMT to
explain the politics underlying environmental
contestations such as climate change has been the
discussion of hegemony (Levy and Egan, 2003;
Nyberg, Spicer and Wright, 2013; Prasad and
Elmes, 2005; Wittneben et al., 2012). Hegemony
involves the organization of consent through ‘in-
tellectual and moral leadership’ (Gramsci, 1971,
p. 57). According to Gramsci (1971, pp. 325–326),
ruling classes produce social consent without the
use of violence or coercion by creating a ‘common
sense’ – an ideological conception of the world that
is taken for granted in creating the future. Hege-
mony is established by winning over agents and
groups to this dominant ideological position. This
‘war of position’ is won through forging relation-
ships and agreements among dierent identities
and interests. In creating a ‘unity of opposites and
distincts’ the new common sense forms the basis of
C2018 British Academy of Management.
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