Description: ENG
This timely book analyses the status of hydrocarbon energy in Russia as both a saleable commodity and as a source of societal and political power. Through empirical studies in domestic and foreign policy contexts, Veli-Pekka Tykkynen explores the development of a hydrocarbon culture in Russia and the impact this has on its politics, identity and approach to climate change and renewable energy.
RUS
Книга «Энергия России Углеводородная культура и изменение климата» рассказывает о том, как нефть и газ текут через российское общество. В работе исследуется и то, как зависимость от ископаемых источников энергии объясняется и оправдывается в глазах простых россиян и какую роль эти источники играют в политике страны. Хотя современная Россия полностью зависит от нефти и газа, страна имеет все предпосылки, чтобы стать крупной державой в области возобновляемой энергетики.
Brief description: Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen is a Professor in Russian Environmental Studies at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland. He leads a research group focusing on energy and environmental policies, energy security, and political power in Russia. Professor Tynkkynen has extensive teaching experience at universities in Europe and Russia. He has delivered tens of public talks, is frequently giving expert statements for authorities as well as is an oft-asked commentator at media.
Review Quotes: "This book examines the role
of Russia's energy resources in shaping not only its policy, polity and political processes, but its social identity
and worldview, thereby exerting critical influence over Russia's relations with the rest of the world. The main
thread running through the book is that 'geography has played a significant role in framing
how the country has been governed -and it continues to do so' (Chapter 1) in that 'geographical
space [is seen] as controllable flows of resources, not as a territory of communities' (Chapter 2). Russia
has been historically dependent on natural rather than human resources, with the vastness of Russia's
natural wealth located in its periphery, away from its urban centres. A spatiality and
materiality approach thus argues that the natural and human resources of Russia are detached from one
another, and that this detachment shapes Russia's polity, understood as broad territorial
governance."
and the wealth, power, and security they support, mitigate some of contemporary
Russia's worst tendencies. One can imagine that a federal state deprived of
resource revenues and lacking physical infrastructure with centralizing effects
would become more, not less authoritarian, and bellicose internationally." -- Boris Barkanov, The Russian Review (2021)