Toxic residues of Senegal's peanut economy

Exported peanuts have been a key source of state revenue and rural incomes in Senegal since the early 20th century. Senegal has among the world's highest rates of liver cancer incidence. From the 1960s, aflatoxin - the toxic metabolite of fungal strains to which peanut plants are vulnerable - was suspected to be a cause of this cancer. Aflatoxin has since been classified and, in markets that import Senegalese peanuts, regulated as a carcinogen. This article situates aflatoxin toxicity amid the traces of Senegal's century-old peanut export economy. Examining how peanuts have transformed and inhabit soil, landscapes, buildings, food, bodies and aetiological knowledge, it suggests ways in which aflatoxin as well as uncertainty about its carcinogenicity might be cast as residues of a market-oriented economy.     

Forks in the Road: Energy Policies in Canada and the US since the Shale Revolution

ABSTRACT

This article examines policy responses in Canada and the US to the shale revolution and changing North American oil and gas markets. We outline the effect of the shale revolution on North American oil and gas markets, and how the subsequent energy policy choices in each country changed the relationship between Canada and the US. In the US, increasing production, combined with the policy imperative of maintaining energy security, led to less support for Canadian supply and the subsequent on-off-on saga of the Keystone XL pipeline. In Canada, growing concern about the balance between the environment and the economy led to stalled pipeline development and reform of regulatory systems, problems exacerbated by the new policy direction in the US.     

The Iron Triangle of Urban Entrepreneurialism: The Political Economy of Urban Corruption in Spain

Despite a cascade of corruption scandals over the last decade, the role of political corruption has yet to be accounted for in the scholarship on Spanish urban entrepreneurialism. This is an omission that extends to the broader literature on the topic as well. This paper looks at the theoretical causes of this neglect and explores ways of integrating corruption into the study of urban entrepreneurialism. To do so, it offers a systematic analysis of the role of clientelism in the political economy of Spanish inter-urban competition. Contrary to the existing literature, which at best explains away corruption as a logical outgrowth of intensified competition for real estate capital, this paper argues that corruption is rooted in a political structure that precedes the emergence of urban entrepreneurialism. This structure is identified as an “iron triangle”, a complex of colluding interests formed by the state, the real estate industry, and political parties.