Public Accountability Deficits as a Policy Problem

Abstract

This chapter contextualizes the research problem with a state of the art of the literature on the institutional resource curse and resource nationalism. The central argument of the institutional theory of the resource curse is that a country should strengthen the public institutional system in the sense of increasing public accountability and enforcing checks and balances, so that they could prevent the political downsizes caused by external shocks of commodities prices. We contend that governments from Latin American countries that engaged in the resource nationalist turn during the past decades were actually headed in the opposite direction, which causes oil policies to hinder public accountability. This chapter proceeds with the explanation of the general aims of our research, the literature review on the resource curse thesis and a brief outlook of the methods employed.