Oil And World Politics

Petroleum is the most valuable commodity in the world and an enormous source of wealth for those who sell it, transport it and transform it for its many uses. As the engine of modern economies and industries, governments everywhere want to assure steady supplies. Without it, their economies would grind to a standstill. Since petroleum is not evenly distributed around the world, powerful countries want to be sure they have access to supplies and markets, whatever the cost to the environment or to human life. Coveting the petroleum of another country is against the rules of international law — yet if accomplished surreptitiously, under the cover of some laudable action, it's a bonanza. This is the basis of "the petroleum game," where countries jockey for control of the world's oil and natural gas. It's an ongoing game of rivalry among global and regional countries, each pursuing its own interests and using whatever tools, allies and organizations offer possible advantage. John Foster has spent his working life as an oil economist. He understands the underlying role played by oil and gas in international affairs. He identifies the hidden issues behind many of the conflicts in the world today. He explores military interventions (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria), tensions around international waterways (Persian Gulf, South China Sea), and use of sanctions or political interference related to petroleum trade (Iran, Russia, Venezuela). He illuminates the petroleum-related reasons for government actions usually camouflaged and rarely discussed publicly by Western politicians or media. Petroleum geopolitics are complex. When clashes and conflicts occur, they are multi-dimensional. This book ferrets out pieces of the multi-faceted puzzle in the dark world of petroleum and fits them together.

These days, one would have a difficult time picking up a newspaper, or watching a newscast that did not have a lead story dealing with some aspect of oil. From instability in the Middle East, to stock market crashes and concerns over the health of the world economy, to wars that seem to break out unexpectedly around the world, to discussions of global warming, and even speculation over the fate of mankind, oil is usually lurking somewhere in the background. To many, oil markets and their linkages to a whole spectrum of events remain something of a mystery. Unfortunately, most of the easily obtained information on oil is deeply flawed. Whole web-conspiracy sites depict ruthless insiders and reckless dictators manipulating energy markets at will. The 30 essays in this volume, written by the leading experts in the field, attempt to set the record straight. While their assessments may lack the sensationalism of many popular pundits, serious readers will find their insights invaluable in the years to come in providing a framework for understanding many of the events of the day. The volume is divided into sections. Part I provides a broad overview of the political dimensions underlying the supply of oil. Some of the key questions addressed include: is the world running out of oil? And if so, is the cause physical scarcity or political/policy failure? Why are many of the oil-producing countries in the developing world so unstable? Can oil markets be made to provide more stability to the world system? Part II examines some of the political responses to oil-related developments. Here, the key questions concern the role of the political process in the development of alternative sources of energy. The various means through which countries approach their energy security is assessed, as is the problem of climate change. The section ends with the provocative question, do governments really need to go to war for oil? Oil production, energy markets, and the political environment produce distinct regional patterns. Part III examines oil and political power in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and South-East Asia. Part IV expands some of the main regional themes through a series of case studies on specific countries: Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Russia and Brazil. A final section looks to the future: will the oil curse continue for many countries? How will the growth and expansion of China affect oil prices and availabilities? Will oil-based sovereign wealth funds contribute to global stability or will they create increased political tensions between consuming and producing countries? Will volatile oil markets undermine the US dollar as well as the global financial system? Perhaps appropriately, the volume ends with an assessment of the future of oil in a carbon constrained world. All in all, the essays in this volume cover the whole spectrum of the politics of oil. Hopefully they will help shed light on this vital, yet still often misunderstood topic. The book does not represent any particular political or ideological position. Instead, each author has sought to objectively seek a deeper understanding as to the complexity and subtlety of forces that have all too often eluded policymakers around the world.

"When and why does international order change? Easy to take for granted, international governing arrangements shape our world. They allow us to eat food imported from other countries, live safely from nuclear war, travel to foreign cities, profit from our savings, and much else. New threats, including climate change and simmering US-China hostility, lead many to worry that the "liberal order," or the US position within it, is at risk. Theorists often try to understand that situation by looking at other cases of great power decline, like the British Empire or even ancient Athens. Yet so much is different about those cases that we can draw only imperfect lessons from them. A better approach is to look at how the United States itself already lost much of its international dominance, in the 1970s, in the realm of oil. Only now, with several decades of hindsight, can we fully appreciate it. The experiences of that partial decline in American hegemony, and the associated shifts in oil politics, can teach us a lot about general patterns of international order. Leaders and analysts can apply those lessons when seeking to understand or design new international governing arrangements on topics ranging from climate change to peacekeeping, and nuclear proliferation to the global energy transition"--

The Politics of Oil brings together legal studies, economics, and political science to illustrate how governments gain and exercise control over oil resources and how political actors influence the global oil market, both individually and in cooperation with each other. The author also investigates the role of oil in preserving regime stability, in civil wars and in inter-state conflicts, as well as discussing the possible implications for the oil industry from policies to combat climate change.

Petroleum is the most valuable commodity in the world and an enormous source of wealth for those who sell it, transport it and transform it for its many uses. As the engine of modern economies and industries, governments everywhere want to assure steady supplies. Without it, their economies would grind to a standstill. Since petroleum is not evenly distributed around the world, powerful countries want to be sure they have access to supplies and markets, whatever the cost to the environment or to human life. Coveting the petroleum of another country is against the rules of international law — yet if accomplished surreptitiously, under the cover of some laudable action, it's a bonanza. This is the basis of "the petroleum game," where countries jockey for control of the world's oil and natural gas. It's an ongoing game of rivalry among global and regional countries, each pursuing its own interests and using whatever tools, allies and organizations offer possible advantage. John Foster has spent his working life as an oil economist. He understands the underlying role played by oil and gas in international affairs. He identifies the hidden issues behind many of the conflicts in the world today. He explores military interventions (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria), tensions around international waterways (Persian Gulf, South China Sea), and use of sanctions or political interference related to petroleum trade (Iran, Russia, Venezuela). He illuminates the petroleum-related reasons for government actions usually camouflaged and rarely discussed publicly by Western politicians or media. Petroleum geopolitics are complex. When clashes and conflicts occur, they are multi-dimensional. This book ferrets out pieces of the multi-faceted puzzle in the dark world of petroleum and fits them together.

China’s rapid economic growth has led to a huge increase in its domestic energy needs. This book provides a critical overview of how China’s growing need for oil imports is shaping its international economic and diplomatic strategy and how this affects global political relations and behaviour. Part One is focused on the domestic drivers of energy policy: it provides a systematic account of recent trends in China’s energy sector and assesses the context and processes of energy policy making, and concludes by showing how and why China’s oil industry has spread across the world in the last fifteen years. Part Two analyses the political and foreign policy implications of this energy-driven expansion and the challenges this potentially poses for China’s integration into the international system. It examines a number of factors linked to this integration in the energy field, including the unpredictabilities of internal policymaking; China’s determination to promote its own critical national interests, and the general ambition of the Chinese leadership to integrate with the international system on its own terms and at its own speed. The highly topical book draws together the various dimensions of China’s international energy strategy, and provides insights into the impact of this on China’s growing international presence in various parts of the world.

Access to oil and natural gas, and their prices, are hugely important axes of geo-political strategy and global economic prospects and have been for a century. This book, written by a Financial Times journalist who has long covered the energy sector, provides readers with the essential information they need for understanding the shifting structure of the global oil and gas economy: where the reserves lie, who produces what, trade patterns, consumption trends, prices. The book highlights political and social issues in the global energy sector -- the domestic inequality, civil conflict and widespread poverty that dependence on oil exports inflicts on developing countries and the strategies of wealthy countries (especially the United States) to control oil-rich regions. Energy demand is on a strong upward trend. The reality of the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels cannot be doubted. What are likely to be the human consequences: changing disease vectors, unprecedented flooding, mass migration? And what is to be done both in the wealthy countries where consumerism drives increasing growth in demand and in developing countries aiming to grow their economies faster? Are alternative energy sources a panacea? Or will the much vaunted hydrogen economy still be based on oil, natural gas and coal? Here is a book that addresses what is perhaps the most pervasive and destabilizing of the issues facing humanity.

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.