Limitations of resource determinism in international energy studies

Most of the energy related studies do often fall into a trap of resource-determinism, which turns the arguments around a primary importance of energy resources. The present commentary attempts to highlight major shortcomings of the resource-determinism and aims to conversely argue for a necessary social dimension in the resource-society interactions. Four critical points are then raised about resource-curse, energy dependencies, consumer-producer juxtaposition and about resource market interrelation. The comment draws an attention to the ontological debate in social sciences and to societal embeddedness of economic processes. On these grounds, the comment suggests to consider a resource as a dependent variable in international energy relations analysis.