Collective Neoliberalism and Market Fundamentalism: Why Concerned People Acquiesce to the Oil and Gas Industry

In the US, unconventional oil and gas (UOG) production has elicited strong public response. As production occurs amid residential and commercial spaces, environmental, social, economic, regulatory, and mental health impacts have been documented across locations. Some community groups have mobilized against this activity, while others have not. We examine how and why UOG production becomes normalized despite its disruptions and risks. Through years of fieldwork, we have observed limited organized mobilization. Even activists express hesitation to demand transformative changes or complete stoppage of UOG production. Yet the drivers of these dynamics need to be better understood. We argue that these passive 'sites of acceptance' emerge through a two-part influence of neoliberalism. First, a mosaic of ideas and policy measures privileging de-regulation and free markets manifests itself in a unique discourse we call collective neoliberalism. Second, neoliberalism as a system of governance creates a fractured, devolved regulatory environment ripe for regulatory capture and lacking sufficient resources. This, in turn, can discourage local efforts to limit or regulate UOG production as regulators seem unresponsive, poorly resourced, or tacitly more supportive of industry than the public. We use ethnographic data collected amid dense, widespread UOG production in Colorado to illustrate these patterns.