The Political Economy of Natural Resources, in the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd Edition (original) (raw)
Related papers
Natural resource industries as global value chains: Frontiers, fetishism, labour and the state
Despite 30 years of research on global value chains, the appropriation of nature in general and natural resource industries in particular remain marginal both theoretically and empirically. There is a parallel ecological deficit in labour process theory and a lack of applied research on natural resource industries. But since historical capitalism is based on the expanding appropriation and transformation of nature by labour, these lacunae must be redressed. Contributing to an emerging body of work in environmental economic geography and the international political economy of the environment, this article theorises global value chains through the lens of the circuit of capital as a tool to unravel some distinctive features of natural resources industries. We propose a framework for the study of natural resource industries as global value chains based on five propositions: (a) commodity frontier theory, (b) the fetishism of natural resources, (c) the socio-ecological indeterminacy of the labour process, (d) distance and durability in the production of time and (e) the contingency of the capitalist state in (re)producing global value chains. While far from exhaustive, we argue that this original synthetic framework provides crucial bases for a research agenda on global value chains in natural resources.
K̦azMU habaršysy. Saâsattanu seriâsy, 2019
This paper analyses the political economy of natural resources literature classifying it on the economic, political, and social aspects regarding institutional interplay. Natural resources might lead to economic prosperity and political development or they destabilize macroeconomic system with windfalls and create political rivalry and social unrest. The specific type of resources matters and makes a difference as well; is it oil or coffee or timber? Institutional development and strategic choices make differences and final outcomes as they determine policies and choices by individual actors. Definitely there are country specific contexts in terms of political culture, demography, historical past and general path dependence but current consensus among researchers is that institutions matter the most. In our paper we look to the different approaches to analyze natural resources in their political and economic parts, and first of all to oil, we look at Dutch disease as a special case of that political and economic interplay.
International journal of legal information, 2018
Some of the papers were first published in volume 11, issue 2 of the International Journal of Law in Context in 2015 and have been revised and re-edited for this book. The book reflects the sustained intellectual examination of the various aspects of the law and regulation of natural resources within the framework of development, sustainability, and human rights. The editors of the book were determined to address the special problems of countries of the global south, thereby giving the topics a geographical balance. Besides the introductory chapter written by the editors, Celine Tan and Julio Faundez, the book is divided into 14 other chapters. In Chapter Two, Lorenzo Cotula discusses, "[I]nvestment Treaties, Natural Resources and Regulatory Space: Technical Issues and Political Choices in International Law." Cotula places international investment law at the heart of what he calls the changing interface between international economic regulation and natural resource rights. He explains that "[d]ecades of international treaty-making have created an extensive network of bilateral and regional investment treaties, including investment chapters in wider trade and investment treaties." Among other things, all these investment treaties seek to offer protection to the rights acquired by the foreign investor in natural resources. This is done in some respects through curtailing the regulatory space of the host country and in other respects, through providing an avenue for dispute settlement for the investor. Cotula argues that the proliferation of investment treaties and arbitrations has made international investment law one of the most dynamic branches of international law and an important part of the legal architecture underpinning economic globalization. International investment law has also yielded more than its fair share of disputes, ranging from questions about substantive standards and dispute settlement mechanisms to various questions about the interface between treaty commitments and regulatory space. These disputes have engendered recalibration of older treaties and shifts in the way some investment treaties are formulated. In conclusion, Cotula raises the issue of lack of democracy in the formulation of investment treaties and counsels that there should be greater parliamentary and citizen engagement to help rethink international investment law and increase its perceived legitimacy. In Chapter Three of the book, Celine Tan tackles political risk insurance (PRI) and the law and governance of natural resources. Tan examines the different kinds of PRI such as a multilateral facility like the World Bank's Multilateral Insurance Guarantee Agency (MIGA) or a state-sponsored facility like the United States Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). Tan sees PRI as a technology of governance and concludes that "the involvement of political risk providers, notably public insurers, in an investment project can significantly influence the project's operational design and investors' engagement with the host state and local communities." She explains that "as a mechanism of risk governance, the operational and regulatory framework of political risk insurance establish a set of normative discourses and operational practices that seek to manage not only the conduct of the capitalimporting state vis-à-vis the foreign investor but also the host state's relationship with its domestic constituents." Chapter Four, "The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in Africa: Overcoming the Resource Curse and Promoting Sustainable Development," provides Emma Wilson and James Van Alstine an opportunity to review the attempts by Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda to overcome the proverbial resource curse. The authors note that "the term resource curse is used to explain why resource-rich countries exhibit poor economic growth, a decline in other sectors, excessive government spending, and misuse of revenue, increases in corruption, greater political authoritarianism and sometimes violent conflict." They point out that between 2010 and 2012, the Democratic Republic of Congo is reputed to have lost at least US$1.36 billion through corrupt mining deals, while Nigeria lost about US
The Political Economy of Extractive Resources
The study uses political economy theories to explain (1) the dynamics within the circle of a country’s top political elites; (2) the dynamics between these political elites, domestic firms, and the state’s technocrats who are tasked with nudging firms toward global competitiveness; and (3) the dynamics between the top-level political elites (in the capital city) and provincial politicians in the extraction area. Several case studies are used to illustrate how natural resource rents influence each of these three political economy relations. Three remedies are then addressed: transparency & accountability, advocated by the West; resources-for-infrastructure barter trades, preferred by China; and distributing resource revenues to citizens equally via direct cash transfers, tried by Mongolia. Lastly, the study draws closer to the real world of German development cooperation. Applying the political economy lens developed throughout the study, the final section discusses the dynamics likely to be encountered when implementing the German Technical Cooperation Guidelines, i.e. assisting partner countries in long-term strategy development; consensus finding among stakeholders; improving technical education; organizing business and worker interests; and giving local communities the means to claim their rights. The study’s aim is to explain why donor-driven reforms (be they for better governance or SME linkage promotion) sometimes fail to meet their intended goals: reform policies – while outwardly appearing similar to policies in the OECD-world – can have an inwardly different function, one that caters to the logic of co-opting elites in order to stabilise the political settlement.
Natural Resources and Economic Development. Some lessons from History
In this work, we highlight the “lessons from history” that can be drawn from a historical discussion and understanding of the past and present of resource-rich developing economies to obtain conditions for successful natural resources-based development. The conceptual core of our answer to those questions will be based on three key ideas. First, abundance of natural resources is closely associated with levels of economic development. Second, we emphasize that an abundance of natural resources is not a fixed situation. It is a process that reacts to changes in the structure of commodity prices and factor endowments, and progress requires capital, labour, technical change and appropriate institutional arrangements. Finally, history shows that institutional quality is the key factor to deal with abundant natural resources and, especially, with the rents derived from their use and exploitation. The ways in which natural resources interact with economic development are mediated by the performance of institutional arrangements in at least three dimensions: (i) institutions’ ability to limit rent-seeking opportunities that divert innovation and resources from productive avenues; (ii) political competition and participation relate to rules governing chief executive recruitment and selection, the fairness and impartiality of electoral processes, and constraints on executive power; and (iii) the characteristics of institutions that reduce transactional risk through proper enforcement of property rights. In sum, history is very clear in showing that natural capital is non-neutral for economic performance but it is a systemic component of economic development where institutional quality is the key component to deal with and create “curses” and “blessings” of natural resources.