In Mega Pipelines Mega Resistance: Tar Sands, Social Movements, and the Politics of Energy Infrastructure, Amy Janzwood examines the development and impact of broad-based campaign coalitions opposed to oil sands pipeline development in Canada. She traces the evolution of these coalitions and details the multitude of strategies they employed to challenge two pipeline projects during the mid-2010s: the Northern Gateway Pipelines (NGP) and the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX). These cases represent two major turning points for pipeline politics in Canada, as the cancellation of NGP in 2017 was a victory for the opposition coalition, while the campaign against TMX (which was eventually purchased by the federal government in 2018) illustrates the complexity of such conflicts. Janzwood’s analysis draws on an impressive 61 firsthand interviews with industry and regulatory representatives, government officials, and opposition coalition members involved in a variety of Environmental NGOs and Indigenous-led organizations. The book also incorporates a wide array of investigative reporting and information obtained from documents made publicly available through Canada’s Access to Information and Privacy process.
Janzwood presents a causal model to explain the formation of coalitions, the strategies they employ, and their overall impact. She examines how political opportunities, social context, problem formulation and coalition resources influence the way that social movement coalitions form, and how these conditions are linked to coalition influence. A central insight of Janzwood’s work is her exploration of five key coalition strategies: regulatory engagement, political access, legal challenges, protest and investor engagement. The book examines each of these strategies in turn, then considers how strategies are employed in combination to greater effect. These five strategies form a key element of the theoretical framework Janzwood develops in order to understand the influence of campaign coalitions. She uses the two case studies of NGP and TMX to empirically illustrate the intersections between these strategies and demonstrate how they are used by opposition coalitions.
Using this framework to structure the investigation of coalition formation and influence in the transnational campaigns against the NGP and TMX projects, Mega Pipelines Mega Resistance complicates pervasive yet reductive narratives of “pro-pipeline versus anti-pipeline” combatants. Rather than reinforce this binary perspective, Janzwood explores how a wide array of issues including Indigenous sovereignty, salmon protection, oil spill concerns and municipal politics all played a role in drawing together diverse actors opposing pipeline infrastructure. For instance, the coalition against NGP involved alliances between Indigenous organizations, First Nations, ENGOs, grassroots community groups, and political allies including mayors of coastal communities such as Burnaby and Vancouver. The complex picture presented by Janzwood challenges narratives that attribute the outcomes of NGP or TMX to a single source, such as Indigenous opposition or large-scale protest.
Mega Pipelines Mega Resistance sits comfortably alongside existing scholarship from Kai Bosworth, Tyler McCreary, Leah Temper and others who have investigated the contentious politics of pipelines in Canada. Janzwood brings an important perspective to this literature through her integration of multiple actors and sites of politics. Indeed, a strength of the work is its incorporation of institutional and regulatory bodies, legal challenges, Indigenous actors and grassroots organizations. While the framing of the analysis as an investigation of the coalition opposing pipeline development may lead readers to believe that the book is primarily of interest to scholars of environmental politics, social movements or issues specific to Western Canada, Janzwood’s work is relevant to a broad range of Canadian political scientists. From federalism to Indigenous politics, the role of municipal governments, political economy and even the role of foreign actors in Canadian activism, this book offers something of interest to every reader.
As with many rich descriptions, particularly those which examine the role of regulatory boards, policy frameworks and the internal workings of private companies, this book calls on the reader to maintain a sharp focus on numerous factors. The complexity of the analysis can be overwhelming at times, with great detail offered and many acronyms to recall. However, Janzwood consistently demonstrates the importance of this level of description and takes care to highlight the relevance of this level of detail to the overall goals of the volume. The complexity was often clarified through the inclusion of tables, timelines and figures; including particularly clever visual maps of the campaign coalitions (pp. 63 and 74). While the coalition strategies focusing on legal challenges, political access and regulatory engagement were robustly examined, the role of protest and blockading felt somewhat understated. This limitation is briefly acknowledged (p. 152), yet the relative lack of attention to on-the-ground mobilization leaves one searching for more.
Overall, Janzwood offers a timely and detailed take on anti-pipeline coalition formation and strategy, showcasing the potential of Indigenous and civil society actors to take on entrenched and well-funded interests. As she poignantly states, “to continue investing in oil sands expansion is to invest in a world of climate chaos” (p. 170). Indeed, this book is an excellent resource for those of us who study, teach and practice Canadian politics during a time of climate crisis.
