Political Economy Of Oil Research Articles

The political economy of oil and its impact on the formation and expansion of slums in petro-states: the case study of Tehran

ABSTRACT This paper consists of three sections: (1) the history of the formation of slums before and after the Islamic Revolution, (2) the role of the political economy of oil in the formation and expansion of slums in Tehran and (3) the application of possible modes of intervention extracted from the new relevant literature phases. The grassroots factor in their formation is the high dependency of the economy on oil and the consequent flow of oil revenues toward large cities, and rural-to-urban migration as the result. Despite many attempts to solve the problems of slums in Iran, they have been doomed to failure simply because they have not taken into consideration the main cause, which is the political economy of oil. The results obtained from the interviews with the urban planning experts indicate that the preferred intervention strategy for such informal settlements is to pursue the Millennium Development Goals.

The Political Economy of Oil and Coronavirus Disease in Nigeria: Imperatives for Diversification

Nigeria runs a mono-petrodollar economy, and the government has persistently ignored the calls for diversification except for when the price of oil plummets. Indeed, there has not been a tangible effort to sincerely shift the focus from being perpetually oil-dependent to developing the non-oil sectors of the economy and increase foreign exchange earnings. However, the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic revealed the volatility of the Nigerian economy and its susceptibility to oil shock and natural disasters. Situated within the context of the Cobweb Theorem, this paper explores how oil dependence has exposed the Nigerian economy to oil price fluctuation and the threat of an impending recession. The paper which relied on secondary data also examines the imperativeness of diversification as a way forward in Nigeria and concludes that the government must take advantage of her abundant resources and pay critical attention to other sectors of the economy such as agriculture.

La razón rentista y sus teóricos: la economía política en el siglo petrolero venezolano

<p>Este artículo se plantea analizar la conexión entre la historia intelectual de la tradición de pensamiento sobre la economía política del petróleo y la historia económica de Venezuela durante el siglo petrolero venezolano. Para ello: 1) se caracteriza la razón rentista, 2) se propone una interpretación de la relación entre la historia intelectual y la historia económica de Venezuela en el siglo XX, 3) se analiza la tradición de economía política del petróleo a la luz de los cambios políticos y económicos, 4) se analiza la tradición abocada a la economía política del petróleo y su relación con el ocaso del siglo petrolero venezolano, 5) se expone una interpretación sobre la crisis en la que se encuentra la sociedad venezolana.</p>

Unrealistic expectations, frustrated progress and an uncertain future? The political economy of oil in Kenya

This paper contributes to an offshoot of the resource curse literature which has examined the cognitive drivers of the phenomenon. It explores how growing expectations of an oil-related boom in Kenya have affected intra-core power contestations and central state functioning. Kenya has experienced two waves of resource boom expectation. The first came in 2006, when the discovery of oil in neighbouring Uganda triggered an exploration rush in Kenya. Recognising the potential for rent generation, particularly around licensing, politicians became increasingly active in the sector. This led to worsening outcomes in terms of state governance and capacity, as Kenya's oil institutions became the site of intra-elite contestations over rents. Kenya's second wave of resource expectation came in 2012, following its own oil discoveries. These necessitated the creation of a new institutional framework for developing the sector, a process that has also been heavily conditioned by – and, in-turn, further fuelled – intra-core contestations. This has resulted in an incoherent and contested institutional framework that has not only stunted and slowed Kenya's efforts to exploit its proven oil resources, but also raised broader questions about the sector's viability and credibility.

The political economy of oil in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): Corruption and regime control

This paper examines in detail dynamics of corruption and regime stabilisation which define the shape of the oil sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This sector is a major source of patronage and rent-extraction. However, much of these rents are not created through production, but through selling access. Most potential fields remain unexplored and undeveloped, which is much more interesting for short-term rent extraction for the concerned actors. Within this, we demonstrate the political and social logics behind corruption. The regime distributes patronage by permitting rent extraction, but this extraction has upper and lower limits: corruption is punished when too visible, and non-participants are side-lined. Further, we note the importance of regime stability logics in the sector, specifically managing internal geopolitics, regional relationships, and central control over major wealth. By exploring in detail the practical realities discussed in general in the ‘resource curse’ and ‘oil curse’ literature, this paper provides a deeper understanding of how political control and corruption function within the DRC, and how development becomes their victim.

Crime, Community, and Human Rights in Southeastern Nigeria, Then and Now

Abstract This article addresses crime and punishment in relation to community and human rights in southeastern Nigeria based on thirty years of observations complemented by additional research. A 1987 crime and its punishment in a rural community are providing a contrast to four violent incidents, their punishment, the absence of a trial, and other human rights violations prevalent in the area. Igbo culture and its socioeconomic and political institutions as well as its religious beliefs and ethics once provided the basis for a person’s identity, economic security, and communal safety; the culture enabled prevention and punishment of crime within the community. This situation has changed drastically; the community has lost its clout; the people are disempowered by transnational corporations in collaboration with the nation-state and within the political economy of oil; the indigenous culture is dismantled, indigenous beliefs and ethics are depreciated, and violent crime is now prevalent and committed without impunity and on all levels of society. Human Rights Watch and other international organizations are pointing to potential solutions on the governmental and administrative levels. However, the socioeconomic situation, political economy, cultural-spiritual and individual issues must also be taken into account and addressed, calling for further research towards finding a way out of the current dilemma.

A ‘rising Africa’ in a resource-rich context: Change, continuity and implications for development

As Africa witnesses a shift from Afro-pessimism to Afro-euphoria, contemporary discourses on the continent have been hinged on the notion of a ‘Rising Africa’. This article explores the often-ignored structural defects upon which the notion is hinged, particularly in resource-rich contexts. The analysis is based on a critique of current narratives of a rising Africa as being far too simplistic and subjective to serve as an enduring basis for capturing the dialectics of change in a resurgent continent. It does this by engaging a multi-level analysis that draws upon the political economy of oil, growing inequalities in resource-rich states, strategic and energy security calculations of global actors, and the complex web of global forces that define the parameters and limits of development on the continent. Given the marginal position of the continent in the global extractive regime, this article posits that a lot will depend on understanding the implications, risks and opportunities embedded in Africa’s current resource boom, with a view to charting a viable and sustainable path in its unpredictable search for development.

The Electoral Commission of Ghana and the Administration of the 2012 Elections

Ghana's Fourth Republic has a reputation for having a reasonably high degree of institutionalisation in election administration. Its electoral and democratic success stories have largely been associated with the autonomy-enhancing institutional design and leadership of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (ECG), which engender a degree of public confidence and trust. The 2012 elections, however, produced an ominous twist in the hitherto sacrosanct nature of democratic legitimacy in Ghana. This article assesses the role of the ECG, drawing on the quality of the elections, measured by the level of participation, competitiveness and legitimacy, as well as the actions and inactions of the ECG at critical stages in the electoral cycle. Overall, the ECG could be adjudged to have done well, especially on the first two indicators, given the high level of voter turnout (80.15%) and the closeness of the total votes and seats won by the ruling National Democratic Congress and the main opposition, the New Patriotic Party. However, the legitimacy of the election was fiercely challenged with the opposition's rejection of the results and attendant litigation in the Supreme Court. The problem may have been accentuated by the new political economy of oil and the strong desire to access and control oil windfall, the messy application of biometric voter verification as a result of the malfunctioning of the equipment and the controversy over the delimitation of 45 new constituencies in a manner interpreted by opposition parties as gerrymandering. It seems these are not heady days for Ghana's democracy. Rising levels of adversarial elite behaviour not only pose serious democratic threats they raise questions about the depth of the much touted institutional foundations of the country's democracy.

The Political Economy of Oil and the Crisis of the Arab State System

This paper argues that the so-called Arab spring is part of a tectonic shift which signals the frailty of the Arab state system as such. Countries benefitting from oil and gas rents have been more resilient, because of their potential to create systems of incentives and disincentives in order to prevent disruptive social change. Islamism, whose emergence is connected with rentier state dynamics is, at the same time, an opportunity and a threat for the survival of the Arab state and, in general, of the Arab states system. In this context, national oil companies can increasingly be conceptualized not merely as instruments of the state, but as bulwarks of nation-state legitimacy in a period of chaos.

The political economy of oil and ‘rebellion’ in Nigeria's Niger Delta

The escalation in armed attacks on Nigeria's oil industry and the massive expansion in oil theft generated a veritable industry in the study of the political economy of war dominated by public-choice strands. Critical scholarship on the Niger Delta challenges this work for its neglect of history in explaining the shift from peaceful protest in the 1990s to armed struggle. Yet taking history seriously need not blind us to the ‘critical breaks’. Nigeria's transition to civilian rule in 1999 brought state and non-state actors into a complicit union as rebellion and oil bunkering consolidated a pre-existing parallel economy. [L'économie politique du pétrole et la « rébellion » dans le Delta du Niger, fief du Nigéria]. L'escalade dans les attaques armées sur l'industrie pétrolière du Nigéria et l'expansion massive dans le vol de pétrole ont généré une véritable industrie dans l'étude de l'économie politique de la guerre, dominée par quelques choix publics. L'étude critique sur le Delta du Niger conteste ce travail pour sa négligence de l'histoire pour expliquer ce passage de la manifestation pacifique dans les années 1990 à la lutte armée. Pourtant prendre l'histoire au sérieux ne doit pas nous aveugler sur « les ruptures critiques ». La transition du Nigéria vers un régime civil en 1999, a amené les acteurs de l'Etat et ceux qui ne relèvent pas de l'État à se fondre dans une union de complicité dès lors que la rébellion et le vol de pétrole avaient consolidé une économie parallèle préexistante. Mots-clés : le pétrole ; la sécurité ; le Delta du Niger ; l'économie politique ; le militantisme ; l'identité

The petroleum industry: A paradox or (sp)oiler of development?

This article addresses one of the fundamental questions facing Nigeria at 50, as it relates to the role of the petroleum industry in the nation's development crisis. The relationship between the petroleum industry and Nigeria's development is approached from two levels – the nature of the global political economy of oil and the ways the Nigerian oil industry has served foreign and domestic elite interests. This explains why the transfer of ownership of the petroleum industry in the 1970s did not result in the transfer of control, nor address the structural deficiencies in the industry. Petroleum has been ‘instrumentalised’ in the high-stake politics and struggles involving transnational and local social forces, contributing to multiple crises. However, it is noted that the prospects of an oil-driven national developmental project cannot be entirely foreclosed, but it would require a new equitable social contract, a visionary leadership and a democratic developmental state.

The political economy of oil and gas in Southeast Asia: heading towards the natural resource curse?

The notion of the resource curse suggests that countries with large caches of natural resources often perform worse in terms of economic growth, social development, and good governance than other countries with fewer resources. The theory posits that countries depending on oil or other extractive industries for their livelihood are among the most economically troubled, socially unstable, authoritarian, and conflict-ridden in the world. This article explores whether the resource curse is occurring in relation to oil and gas production in Southeast Asia, where investments in oil and gas infrastructure are expected to increase significantly. The article begins by conceptualizing the resource curse before explaining the factors believed to cause it. It then proposes metrics that can be used to identify the presence of the resource curse before testing these metrics on the five Southeast Asian countries with the largest rates of oil and gas production and reserves – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand – from 1987 to 2007. The article compares the performance of these Southeast Asian countries with the five largest producers in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as well as Brazil, China, India, the Russian Federation, and South Africa. The article concludes that the resource curse is not occurring in any of these countries, and that the theory may be too simplistic and deterministic to fully explain why some countries appear to be ‘cursed’ with resources while others are ‘blessed’.

The Political Economy of Oil in Alaska: Multinationals vs the State – By Jerry Mcbeath, Matthew Berman, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Mary F. Ehrlander

The Political Economy of Oil in Alaska: Multinationals vs the State – By Jerry Mcbeath, Matthew Berman, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Mary F. Ehrlander

The Political economy of oil in Alaska: multinationals vs. the state

Introduction. A Brief History of Oil in Alaska. Campaigns, Elections, and the Influence of Oil. Petroleum Revenues and Tax Policy. Oil Supply, Budgets, and Expenditures. Economic Development and State Ownership of Oil and Gas. Managing the Wealth. Protecting the Environment. Conclusions.

Gulf Cooperation Council Oil Exporters and the Future of the Dollar

Since the mid-1970s, the value of the United States' dollar has been upheld by a number of domestic and international factors. An often underestimated factor is that oil is sold and traded in US do...

The Politics of Oil Revisited

The Politics of Oil Revisited Joseph A. Pratt (bio) Paul Sabin. Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. xx + 307 pp. Figures, maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $45.00. History can add much needed perspective to current debates over energy. Unfortunately, professional historians have neglected this vital issue, at least since the last wave of interest in energy history crested in the early 1980s. Amid the current concern about energy security and climate change, we are, however, witnessing the rebirth of interest in "energy/environmental history." Paul Sabin's Crude Politics is an excellent building block in this emerging literature. It is a model of systematic, data-rich analysis with much to say to both historians and policy makers. Although the subtitle, The California Oil Market, 1900–1940, seems to describe a regional study, the book is much more. Because California is a major oil producing state and the time period covered witnessed the birth of attitudes and laws that shaped the oil industry from World War I until the oil crises of the 1970s, Sabin's work offers far-reaching insights into the political economy of oil in the twentieth century. The analytical framework constructed by Sabin from legal, political, and economic history should prove flexible enough to apply to events both earlier and later in history, as well as events in other parts of the world. The book begins with a strong statement of the author's fundamental point: "the free market, supposedly independent of government interference, is a mythical concept" (p. xv). Sabin analyzes government actions that structured markets, creating the legal and regulatory framework within which competition occurred. Parts I and II of his book demonstrate how conflicts over property rights, at both the national and state levels, defined the basic terms of access of oil companies to public and private lands. Part III examines the regulation of pollution and overproduction to illustrate how political and legal processes shaped the government's response to the societal impacts of oil production. Part IV offers an interesting analysis of how taxes on gasoline and automobile registration encouraged highway building, contributing to the steady growth of demand for gasoline. Throughout these sections, the book returns to its [End Page 77] central task, the discussion of how politics, broadly defined to include legal and regulatory forces, shaped the market for this important product in this important state. One of the book's great strengths is its detailed analysis of political lobbying. The chapter on the ten-year political battle over the federal government's 1920 Mineral Leasing Act, which created the legal framework for access to oil on public lands, gives convincing descriptions of the strings being pulled as well as the motivations of those doing the pulling. Sabin's analysis of the writing of this important law shows the strengths that have made oil industry lobbyists so successful in the United States: a long-term perspective, access to good data, excellent lawyers, control of jobs, money. Again and again, oil industry interests turned to politics to try to capture competitive advantage. They understood the opportunities designed into the market because their lobbyists had been present at the creation of such opportunities; they understood the changing structure of the market because their lawyers had guided many of these changes through the legal process. A later chapter on the controversy raised by oil pollution in the 1920s broadens Sabin's analysis of lobbying by showing how deep divisions within the oil industry shaped the choice of public policies on oil production along the southern California coast. Political tensions between the oil companies and groups outside the industry also grew during these often heated debates over the societal costs and benefits of coastal drilling. Divisions within the industry became even more pronounced in later debates over potential government actions to address problems caused by the chronic overproduction of oil in the 1930s. The competing self-interests of domestic and international producers on the divisive issue of imports could not be easily balanced through politics. Good sources and an eye for complexity allow Sabin to give the reader a convincing view of the messy process of...

Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation in Nigeria: Drawing Lessons from the Democratic Experience in India

Newfound ‘consensus’ that has emerged in the form of the acceptance of the concepts of ‘democratization’ or ‘governance’ is about the minimalist form of liberal democracy under the auspices of the contemporary political aid industry. With the label of democracy getting detached from the content of the concept, even the ‘home-grown’ non-democratic regimes in Africa have appropriated the term. As for Nigeria, weakened both by political decay and economic crisis, ‘democratic transition’ was more of an obligation than a choice for the political class of Nigeria. The recent democratic openings, however, have failed to reconcile, if not aggravated its ethnic, linguistic, regional, religious and cultural differences. Nigeria today is in desperate need of democratic solutions and consolidation while facing a serious crisis in the form of an overall absence, deterioration or breakdown of social, economic and political institutions of governance; the safeguard of human security; a dependent political economy of oil; and the dereliction of physical infrastructure. Lessons from the relatively successful experiences of Indian democracy can be instructive, as India, like Nigeria, not only lacked all the ingredients that make liberal democracy a success at the time of decolonization, but to an extent also faces similar challenges even now.

Strangers, indigenes and settlers: Contested geographies of citizenship in Nigeria

. This paper addresses contested geographies of citizenship in Nigeria. There, a confluence of geo-historical forces (cultural pluralism, colonialism, the political economy of oil and military rule) has promoted the proliferation of competing formal citizenship containers-cum-states. The creation of new states, coupled with an exclusionary ideology, has given rise to fractured and dysfunctional spaces of citizenship in Nigeria. Attention is given to the meanings and experiences associated with these sub-national citizenship containers. The case study is also discussed in the broader terms of national state trajectories and citizenship geographies in Africa, where states are facing restructuring pressures from within and without.

Political Economy of Oil - Revenue Sharing in a Developing Country Illustrations from Nigeria

Control over natural resource revenues is a contentious, politically divisive issue in most developing countriesespecially for oil production. A typical policy response of the center in such cases has been to introduce revenue sharing arrangements. Such measures have generally not assuaged the aspirations of the oil-producing regions and have exposed them to volatility in their revenue flows that they are generally unable to cope with. An alternative is to assign more stable revenue bases to the regional administrations, together with a general-purpose transfer system that incorporates a floor. This acts as an insurance mechanism for the regional administrations and facilitates the stable provision of public services in the oil-production regions, as well as the possibility of redistribution. We use the recent history of oil-revenue sharing in Nigeria to illustrate the propositions.

Profitability and supply price in the US domestic oil industry: implications for the political economy of oil in the twenty-first century

In May 2001, the US Government's National Energy Policy Development Group proposed to increase investment in domestic oil resources and to diversify further the sourcing of US oil imports by increasing production in new petroleum provinces. The paper argues that both strands of this policy are dependent upon a third, unstated, objective--to ensure that OPEC retains sufficient market power to prevent the sort of collapse in world oil prices that occurred in 1998--99. The consequences of that collapse, when the real price of US oil fell to its lowest level in 53 years, are explored. Finally, it is argued that the outcome of the crisis was a rapprochement between OPEC and the US. It is suggested that the consensus between the US and OPEC as to the desired range within which the world oil price should move is likely to survive any temporary political disturbances. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.