Dependent Development and the Arab OPEC States

Abstract

This analysis uses Gerschenkron's theories on delayed industrialization to reinterpret the vital role played by transnational oil firms in the economic development of the Arab OPEC states. Given the relative backwardness of their urban middle classes and state structures, the study points to the major oil firms as the initial sources of entrepreneurial activity and capital accumulation in the Arab oil-exporting countries. Likewise, as the economic needs of the majors and their OECD markets largely have structured the Arab OPEC states' development, their economic modernization has unfolded as a political economy of dependent development. While the transnationals' initial inputs allowed the Arab OPEC states to diminish their relative backwardness, the investigation concludes that despite their tremendous growth in the 1970s these economies have not diminished their dependence on the oil majors and the OECD states to become economically more autonomous.