Featured Publications

Civic power in mining conflicts: Barrier or catalyst for a just energy transition?

Anabel Marin and Gabriel Palazzo · Environmental Research Letters, 20(5), 2025

Are communities that resist mining an obstacle to the energy transition? Using an original dataset built from global news records (GDELT, 2015–2022), this article provides the first systematic global mapping of conflict and cooperation in mining regions. Resistance turns out to be widespread across rich and poor countries alike, often causing costly delays and cancellations — and the authors argue that moving beyond CSR and conventional consultation, towards genuinely democratised investment decisions, is essential for a just and viable transition.

Mining Legitimacy: Governing the Politics of Resource-Based Green Industrial Policy

Anabel Marín and Santiago Cunial · IDS Working Paper 623, 2025

Green transitions are not only technological but deeply political: they depend on minerals extracted in places where mining is increasingly contested. Drawing on evidence from Argentina and Chile, this paper shows that civic action is not merely a barrier to mining expansion but a driver of institutional innovation and participatory governance — and distils design lessons for green industrial policies that are socially legitimate as well as growth-oriented.

The Role of Domestic Policy Coalitions in Extractive Industries Governance: Disentangling the Politics of “Responsible Mining” in the Philippines

Jewellord T. Nem Singh and Alvin Camba · Environmental Policy and Governance, 30(5), 2020

When do global standards for corporate behaviour actually take hold in contentious sectors like mining? Tracing Philippine mining politics across the Arroyo, Aquino and Duterte governments, this article shows how domestic policy coalitions determine the partial and uneven adoption of global “responsible mining” norms.

Contesting Mineral Extraction for Transformation: Civic Power in Just Energy Transitions

Anabel Marin · IDS Bulletin 56(2), 2025

Argentina and Chile have become key suppliers of transition minerals — and sites of widespread socioenvironmental conflict. Reviewing over 180 sources and mapping 36 conflict cases, this article shows how resistance led by indigenous communities, local assemblies, NGOs and municipal governments has blocked projects, prompted legal reforms and generated bottom-up innovations — a catalyst for policy transformation, not merely a barrier.

Further Publications

Nem Singh

• Handbook of Resource Nationalism(Edward Elgar, 2026), co-edited with J.S. Ovadia and R. Saunders.
• ‘Environmental Governance amidst the Climate Crisis and Energy Transition in the 21st Century’, The Newsletter, IIAS (2022).
• ‘Resource Governance and Norm Domestication in the Global South’, special issue, Environmental Policy and Governance(2020), with K. MacDonald.
• ‘Debating Unconventional Energy: Social, Political and Economic Implications’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources(2017), with K. Neville et al.
• ‘Governing Natural Resources’, in Handbook of Latin American Governance(Routledge, 2018).
• ‘Neoliberalism, Resource Governance and the Everyday Politics of Protests in the Philippines’, in The Everyday Political Economy of Southeast Asia(Cambridge University Press, 2016), with A. Camba.
• Resource Governance and Developmental States in the Global South(Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), co-edited with F. Bourgouin.
• ‘The (Local) Costs of Reducing our Dependency on Imported Raw Materials’, Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability (2022).
• ‘Mining Our Way out of the Climate Change Conundrum? The Power of a Social Justice Perspective’, Wilson Center (2021).

Marín

• ‘Social and environmental aspects of resource extraction of energy-transition minerals’, Environmental Research Letters(2026), with D.B. Agusdinata et al.
• ‘Mining – The Dark Side of the Energy Transition’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions(2021), with D. Goya.
• ‘Bringing Democracy to Governance of Mining for a Just Energy Transition’, IDS Policy Briefing 213 (2023).

Related Projects（Marín）

• Tracing Risks, Driving Change: Building Inclusive Trade in EV Value Chains, Principal Investigator, IDS, funded by the CITP Innovation Fund (2026).
• The Justice Footprint of Mineral Imports in UK Value Chains, Principal Investigator, IDS, funded by the CITP Innovation Fund (2024–2025).
• Revisioning Territorial Rights and Mining in Minas Gerais, Brazil, Co-Investigator, IDS, University of Sussex and UFMG, funded by SSRP (2023–2024).
• Transition in the Mining Sector in Chile: Leveraging Civil Society and Institutions, Project Leader, IDS with COES (Chile), funded by the IDB (2022).
• Extractive Industries in the 21st Century: Transformation in Latin America, Project Leader, funded by IDRC (2016–2018).