How dare they? Neoliberal resentment and carbon taxes in Alberta, Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT Policies that put a price on carbon dioxide emissions have long been favored in economic circles for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Yet when such policies were deployed in Alberta, Canada, they sparked passionate opposition by conservative politicians, pundits, and interest groups. The opposition revealed that while carbon taxes remain firmly within a market-based neoliberal policy framework, many of those who opposed them are committed to market-based policies. Drawing on legislative debates and media commentary, I argue that the answer can be found in anti-elitist resentment. I contend that anti-elitist resentment served as a component of the affective formations that underwrote the emergence of expertise and policymaking in the 1970s and 1980s, only to now be taken up in opposition to neoliberal policy expertise.