Seafood & Democracy: Understanding the influence of autocratic regimes on resourcebased firms.

Scotland has set ambitious targets for expanding its fishing industry, especially through aquaculture. This expansion aims at meeting the increasing demand located in autocratic or oligarchic regimes such as Russia, China, and the Gulf countries. The recent events involving Russia and the European Union have shown the risks associated with an extensive reliance on few buyers, located in autocratic, and potentially adverse, regimes. The decision of the Chinese government to boycott Norwegian fish stocks offers another example of the interconnection between markets characterized by oligopsonies, and international relations. Furthermore, relying on spatially far markets will increase the reliance of the sector on fossil fuels for transportation, thus diminishing the sustainability of the fishing sector, and exposing it to further price volatility.
The proposed writing workshop brings together leading researchers on capture fish, aquaculture environmental policy, and resource management to explore the implications of for the Scottish fishing industry and the Scottish society.

1. Use of secondary data for understanding how supply and demand structures have affected producing regions in conjunction with geopolitical, ecological and economic shifts.
2. Similarities in resilience to external shocks between seafood sectors, possibly due to concentration, market drivers and capital intensity.
3. For Scotland: social risk mainly due to lack of alternatives in the context of socially fragile areas (salmon).
4. Cross-fertilization and cross-learning between aquaculture/fisheries and natural/social sciences for identifying and addressing complex social and economic issues.
5. Formation of stronger bond between researchers across MASTS institutions.