Featured Publications

Handbook of Resource Nationalism

Edited by Jesse Salah Ovadia, Richard G. Saunders and Jewellord T. Nem Singh · Edward Elgar, 2026

As states race to secure the minerals of the energy transition, resource nationalism has returned to the centre of global politics. This 33-chapter handbook — the first comprehensive reference on the subject — maps how mineral-producing societies assert sovereignty over their resources, across commodities from oil and gas to nickel, tin and rare earths, and what this means for strategic competition between international powers.

Beyond the twin transition: Military drivers of critical minerals’ expansion

Phil Johnstone and Anabel Marín · The Extractive Industries and Society, 2026

Critical minerals demand is usually explained by the green and digital ‘twin transition’. This article foregrounds a third, overlooked driver — military mobilisation and rearmament — showing how war preparedness has long shaped which minerals count as ‘critical’, and how today’s intensified militarisation is changing extraction and governance dynamics across supply chains, with serious implications for sustainable development.

Industrial Upgrading and Economic Statecraft: The Dual Benefits of China’s Resource Nationalism in the Rare Earths Sector

Jewellord T. Nem Singh and Yingfeng Ji · in Handbook of Resource Nationalism, Edward Elgar, 2026

China’s dominance of rare earths is the defining case of minerals as geopolitical leverage. This chapter traces how Chinese resource nationalism has served both industrial upgrading at home and economic statecraft abroad — a dual strategy other producing countries now seek to emulate or counter.

From Dominance to Dependence: What the UK Must Learn to Build Trusted Critical Minerals Partnerships

Anabel Marin and Gabriel Palazzo · CITP Briefing Paper, 2025

The UK now depends on critical minerals produced elsewhere, yet security-of-supply initiatives alone will not build trust with producing countries. This briefing argues that credible partnerships require conflict-sensitive engagement: understanding where and why mining disputes arise, assessing conflict early, and building pathways that turn disputes into negotiated agreements.

Further Publications

Nem Singh

• ‘Power and Industrial Policy under China’s Belt and Road Initiative’, Competition and Change(2025), with L. Tjia and G. Lim; also special issue guest editorship (2026).
• ‘Net-Zero Emissions and the China Challenge: Decarbonization amid Great Power Competition in the Indo-Pacific’, Monthly Review(2024), with J. De los Reyes.
• ‘The Advance of the State and the Renewal of Industrial Policy in the Age of Strategic Competition’, Third World Quarterly(2023).
• ‘Recentring Industrial Policy Paradigm within IPE and Development Studies’, Third World Quarterly(2023).
• ‘The Politics of Designing and Negotiating Industrial Policy in the 21st Century’, special issue, Third World Quarterly(2023).
• ‘Environmental Governance amidst the Climate Crisis and Energy Transition in the 21st Century’, The Newsletter, IIAS (2022).
• ‘The Theory and Practice of Building Developmental States in the Global South’, Third World Quarterly(2018), with J. Ovadia.
• ‘Towards Post-neoliberal Resource Politics? The International Political Economy of Oil and Copper in Brazil and Chile’, New Political Economy(2014).
• ‘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.
• ‘Evolving Forms of Resource Nationalism and State Ownership in the CRM Sector – Implications for EU Cooperation Strategy’, FEPS (2026).
• ‘Renewing Industrial Policy: A Strategic Path to Economic Development in the Global South?’, Research Network Sustainable Global Supply Chains (2024).
• ‘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).
• ‘Strategic Interdependence: Supply Chains and the US-China Rivalry’, Phenomenal World(2024).
• ‘Making the White Gold Rush Pay’, The World Today, Chatham House (2024).
• ‘Geographies in Transition: Mining-based Development and the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Strategy’, Phenomenal World(2022).

Marín

• ‘Civic power in mining conflicts: Barrier or catalyst for a just energy transition?’, Environmental Research Letters(2025), with G. Palazzo.
• ‘Critical minerals and the new development dilemma: What the WBG’s new strategy must get right’, Bretton Woods Project (2025).
• ‘Mining – The Dark Side of the Energy Transition’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions(2021), with D. Goya.

Related Projects（Marín）

• Tracing Risks, Driving Change: Building Inclusive Trade in EV Value Chains, Principal Investigator, IDS, funded by the CITP Innovation Fund (2026).
• Critical Minerals and Sustainable Development, Principal Investigator, IDS, SPRU and School of Business and Global Studies (2024–2025).
• Drivers of Responsible Business Conduct in LMICs, Principal Investigator, IDS, funded by FCDO (2024).
• Strengthening Domestic Capacities and International Collaboration for Critical Minerals Value Addition, Principal Investigator, CENIT, funded by UNCTAD (2023–2024).