From denial to dilution: state response to environmental disaster in Peru

In this paper, we examine the two largest oil spills in Peru’s history: the Cuninico inland disaster of 2014 and the Ventanilla offshore spill of 2022. At face value these two cases seem distinct: one characterized by very little environmental data and governmental accountability bound with domestic courts, and another with significant scientific documentation and tremendous international legal pressure. However, we show that in both cases, states respond with a four-fold process designed to assert their legitimacy amid severe environmental crises: denial, delegation, data collection, and deliberation. Through this process, states quell public discontent and dilute their responsibility. In explaining how nation-states respond to environmental crises, the existing political economy of development literature argues that weak state capacity is often to blame for poor disaster response. However, attributing environmental failures solely to state weakness offers an incomplete explanation. Ironically, developing countries such as Peru, demonstrate strength to promote extractive industries, yet not as much to regulate or halt them. Thus, the resulting weak environmental institutions can be seen not a cause of poor environmental outcomes, but rather a consequence of extractive development in Peru. By integrating the strategic ignorance literature, we show that “non-knowledge” is deployed by weak states in the aftermath of a disaster, when significant environmental data is both present and not present. Thus, we argue that strategic ignorance is a form of statecraft that enables extractive corporations to continue with business-as-usual, perpetuating cycles of resource exploitation and social inequality without true accountability.