Drilling into the Past - Petro-Masculinity, Authoritarian Nostalgia and the Temporal Politics of Fossil Energy

This paper examines the nostalgic dimension of petro-masculinity as a linking element between fossil fuel capitalism and authoritarian political movements. Building on Daggett’s (2018) concept of petro-masculinity and integrating critical theory perspectives from Adorno, Stögner, Sauer, and Rensmann, the analysis reveals how nostalgia functions as a temporal-political mechanism that interweaves fossil energy, patriarchal gender orders, and authoritarian desire. Through a critical discourse analysis of Donald Trump’s 2017 Paris Climate Agreement withdrawal speech and a longitudinal examination of US pickup truck advertising (2013–2025), the paper demonstrates how petro-nostalgia operates across political and commercial registers. A new comparative section contextualizes these findings globally, analysing SUV market data from the United States, the Eu-ropean Union, and China. The analysis shows that while SUV dominance is a transnational phe-nomenon—SUVs now account for approximately 48% of global car sales—its cultural coding var-ies significantly across national contexts. Whereas the US and parts of Europe exhibit strong pet-ro-nostalgic patterns linking SUV consumption to masculine identity and authoritarian temporality, the Chinese market, dominated by electrified SUVs from domestic brands, largely lacks this nos-talgic dimension. This contrast strengthens the paper’s central argument: petro-nostalgia is not an inherent feature of large vehicle markets, but a culturally specific ideological formation tied to fos-sil-fuelled patriarchal orders. The findings contribute to ongoing debates in energy humanities, po-litical ecology, and gender studies by theorizing nostalgia as a constitutive—not merely accompa-nying—element of authoritarian fossil fuel politics.