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ABSTRACTThrough a micro‐level study of a biofuel‐related land acquisition in rural Tamil Nadu, India, this article reveals how state–subject relations are shaping modern land deal politics. Through its political construction of the concept of 'wasteland' and its associated wasteland development programme, the Indian state has facilitated a series of questionable land acquisitions, reshaping agrarian livelihoods in the process. A class of land brokers has emerged to help carry out the state's project of converting 'wastelands' to more 'productive', state‐defined uses such as biofuel cultivation and industrial expansion. Those whose lands have been acquired as part of these programmes have undergone a transition to wage labour, increasing the prolitarianization of agrarian communities. By documenting the mechanics of this 'wasteland governmentality', this study contributes to a political sociology of the state by unpacking the linkages between the state and agrarian subjects in the context of the 'global land grab'.

AbstractDespite calls to increase federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing (HF), the U.S. Congress has maintained a regulatory system in which environmental regulatory authority is devolved to the states. We argue that this system is characterized by a long‐standing "policy monopoly": a form of stability in policy agenda‐setting in which a specific manner of framing and regulating a policy issue becomes hegemonic. Integrating theories on agenda‐setting and environmental discourse analysis, we develop a nuanced conceptualization of policy monopoly that emphasizes the significance of regulatory history, public perceptions, industry–government relations, and environmental "storylines." We evaluate how a policy monopoly in U.S. HF regulation has been constructed and maintained through a historical analysis of oil and gas regulation and a discourse analysis of eleven select congressional energy committee hearings. This research extends scholarship on agenda‐setting by better illuminating the importance of political economic and geographic factors shaping regulatory agendas and outcomes.

The extraction of unconventional oil and gas—from shale rocks, tight sand, and coalbed formations—is shifting the geographies of fossil fuel production, with complex consequences. Following on the natural science survey of the environmental consequences of hydraulic fracturing (Jackson et al. 2014), this review examines social science literature on unconventional energy. After an overview of the rise of unconventional energy, the review examines energy economics and geopolitics, community mobilization, and state and private regulatory responses. Unconventional energy requires differing frames of analysis than conventional energy because of three distinct characteristics: increased drilling density; low-carbon and "clean" energy narratives of natural gas; and differing ownership and royalty structures. This review points to the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the resulting dynamic, multi-level web of relationships that implicate land, water, food, and climate. Further, the review highlights how scholarship on unconventional energy informs the broader energy landscape and contested energy futures.