Oil And Politics In The Gulf Of Guinea

Download or read book Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea written by Ricardo Soares de Oliveira and published by Hurst & Company. This book was released on 2007 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the paradox at the heart of present-day Gulf of Guinea politics. The governance crisis festering throughout every one of the region's states ought to discourage outsiders from capital-intensive, long-term commercial involvement and cast doubts over the political survival of ruling cliques. However, the presence of large petroleum deposits radically changes this equation: the negative dynamics of state failure and widespread violence affect the general population but spare the oil nexus. The material and political resources made available by oil allow states to survive regardless of bad policies, facilitate their governing elites' material success regardless of reckless management, earn international allies regardless of erratic domestic conduct, and make companies want to invest regardless of risk. The recent oil boom only strengthens this paradoxical viability. Making possible what is arguably the largest inflow of resources into Africa in history, it is of a different order from the short-term viability afforded by the exploitation of other natural resources. Nonetheless, the partnership between insiders and outsiders that permits the extraction of oil is not conducive to positive long-term outcomes in institution-building or broad-based economic growth. Highly dependent on uninterrupted money flows and beset by various destabilising trends, the political economy of oil in the Gulf of Guinea is poised in a state of 'permanent crisis'. This study, based on extensive fieldwork, interviews and engagement with primary and secondary sources, is the first on the subject to take on the regional, as opposed to the country-specific, dimension. It has four key aims. The first is to bring out the extent to which oil has forged the interaction of the region with the world economy and how the ongoing expansion of the oil sector will deepen this pivotal role. Secondly, how this international relevance of petroleum has shaped postcolonial domestic politics and institutions. Thirdly, it examines the interests of different sets of empowered actors in the partnership between importers, producers and oil companies, their interplay, and the manner and contexts in which their goals diverge or converge. Finally, it analyses the sources of long-term sustainability of the political economy of oil in the Gulf of Guinea amidst seemingly unmanageable chaos.

Download or read book Oil and the political economy in the Middle East written by Martin Beck and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil, which started mid-2014, had major repercussions across the Middle East for net oil exporters, as well as importers closely connected to the oil-producing countries from the Gulf. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century – one that has continued to impose constraints, but also provided opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The studies reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period but were incapable of repelling burdensome adjustment policies, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to fulfil the expectation that they could benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection signifies that rentierism still prevails with regard to both empirical dynamics in the Middle East and academic discussions on its political economy.

Download or read book Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf written by James J.F. Forest and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2006-03-07 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf examines the national security implications of U.S. energy security policies in the Middle East, and the emerging U.S. involvement in oil exploration and extraction in West Africa. Similar political, social, and economic challenges_poverty, corruption, lack of infrastructure, and weak governments_are seen in the oil-producing states of both the Middle East and Africa. Drawing comparisons between these two regions allows Forest and Sousa to formulate policy recommendations for how to handle foreign policy toward Africa in the future based on lessons learned from past interaction with the Middle East. Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf promises to inform a lively debate over the future of U.S. foreign policies toward Africa and is a valuable resource for policymakers and the academic community that should be approached in a coherent, integrated fashion to ensure the success of the United State's energy and national security agendas.

Download or read book The Petro-developmental State in Africa written by Jesse Salah Ovadia and published by Hurst & Company. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Local initiatives, local control and local ownership are increasingly characteristic of Africa's petroleum sector, as Ovadia sets out in his book

Download or read book Maritime Security Cooperation in the Gulf of Guinea written by Kamal-Deen Ali and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Maritime Security Cooperation in the Guinea: Prospects and Challenges, Kamal-Deen Ali provides ground-breaking analyses of the maritime security situation in the Gulf of Guinea and its implications for shipping, energy security, sustainable fisheries as well as national and regional security. The book juxtaposes the growing strategic importance of the Gulf of Guinea against the rising insecurity in the maritime domain, especially from piracy. Ali points out key gaps in prevailing regional and international approaches to maritime security cooperation in the Gulf of Guinea and sets out several suggestions for combating piracy as well as other maritime security threats while effectively enhancing maritime security cooperation in the region.

Download or read book Magnificent and Beggar Land written by Ricardo Soares de Oliveira and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-02 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magnificent and Beggar Land is a powerful account of fast-changing dynamics in Angola, an important African state that is a key exporter of oil and diamonds and a growing power on the continent. Based on three years of research and extensive first-hand knowledge of Angola, it documents the rise of a major economy and its insertion in the international system since it emerged in 2002 from one of Africa's longest and deadliest civil wars. The government, backed by a strategic alliance with China and working hand in glove with hundreds of thousands of expatriates, many from the former colonial power, Portugal, has pursued an ambitious agenda of state-led national reconstruction. This has resulted in double-digit growth in Sub-Saharan Africa's third largest economy and a state budget in excess of total western aid to the entire continent. Scarred by a history of slave trading, colonial plunder and war, Angolans now aspire to the building of a decent society. How has the regime, led by President José Eduardo dos Santos since 1979, dealt with these challenges, and can it deliver on popular expectations? Soares de Oliveira's book charts the remarkable course the country has taken in recent years.

Download or read book Poisoned Wells written by Nicholas Shaxson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each week the oil and gas fields of sub-Saharan Africa produce well over a billion dollars' worth of oil, an amount that far exceeds development aid to the entire African continent. Yet the rising tide of oil money is not promoting stability and development, but is instead causing violence, poverty, and stagnation. It is also generating vast corruption that reaches deep into American and European economies. In Poisoned Wells, Nicholas Shaxson exposes the root causes of this paradox of poverty from plenty, and explores the mechanisms by which oil causes grave instabilities and corruption around the globe. Shaxson is the only journalist who has had access to the key players in African oil, and is willing to make the connections between the problems of the developing world and the involvement of leading global corporations and governments.