Why do Mines Fail to Obtain a Social License to Operate?: Insights from the Proposed Kallak Iron Mine (Sweden) and the Prosperity/New Prosperity Gold–Copper Mine (Canada)

Opposition to mines endures even in countries with relatively strong environmental assessment processes and regulations. Why proposed mines fail to obtain a social license to operate is analyzed by developing a framework comprised of three concepts—process legitimacy, distributional outcomes, and values compatibility—drawing from the social license to operate, interactive governance, and environmental justice literatures. The framework is applied to understand opposition from local Indigenous people to two mine projects, one in Sweden and the other in British Columbia, Canada. Evidence from interviews with Sami legal experts and Reindeer Herding Community representatives and an advisor with the Tŝilhqot’in National Government, as well as from secondary sources is used to analyze the contestation. Despite the proposed mines being situated in different governance contexts, the reasons for the opposition are markedly similar - environmental assessment processes are illegitimate, distributional outcomes unfair, and values incompatible. The comparative empirical analysis leads to refining the framework as a scaffold with values compatibility as the foundational plank, rather than three independent planks contributing to a social license to operate. The analysis offers insights into company commitments to Indigenous engagement, enhancements to process legitimacy, and evolving and paradigmatic shifts in governance processes, as articulated by Indigenous peoples and international governance mechanisms such as the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.