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research themes >
global security > oil & conflict > |
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OIL & CONFLICT
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oil & conflict research
Many contemporary conflicts involve oil-dependent states. With support from the Ford Foundation, this project was designed
to investigate whether oil-dependence causes, exacerbates, or
mitigates conflict through six case studies – Chechnya, Casanare
in Colombia, Aceh in Indonesia, Nagorno Karabakh, Angola and
the Niger Delta.
The project examined three theoretical models:
(a) The Geo-Political model in which conflict is explained in terms of the struggle for strategic resources.
(b) The Petro-State model, according to which oil dependent states suffer from a political disease akin to the
economic disease known as Dutch disease or resource curse, and
(c) The Greed model in which conflict is explained in terms of the private
greed of the warring parties.
When first drafts of our case studies were completed, we held a meeting in the Rockefeller
Foundation conference centre at Bellagio, with oil executives
and NGOs in order to discuss our conclusions.
Conclusion: Our main conclusion
is that oil does indeed exacerbate conflict. But whereas in
the ‘old wars’ of the twentieth century, the main explanatory
model was geo-political, in the ‘new wars’ of the twenty first
century, the petro-state and greed models have better
explanatory power. Our results will be published as a book
entitled New and Old Oil Wars edited by Mary Kaldor and Yahia
Said and published by Pluto Press.
staffing
Mary Kaldor
Mary Kaldor is the Global Civil Society Program Director at the Center for Global Governance at the London School of Economics. During the 1980's her work focused on 'New Wars', especially in the Balkans and the Transcaucasus. She directed a UNU\WIDER project on Restructuring the Global Military Sector. Her most recent book is New and Old Wars published in 1999 by Polity.
Yahia Said
Yahia Said is a Research Officer at the Center for Global Governance at the London School of Economics. Over the past five years, Mr. Said worked with multinational companies in Russia in his capacity as a corporate finance consultant with Ernst & Young. Mr. Said specializes in issues of economic transition and security in post communist societies. His most recently publication on this subject addressing the restructuring of the military sector in Slovakia appeared in The End of Military Fordism: Restructuring the Global Military Sector published by Pinter in 1998. He recently completed a research paper together with Project Director Mary Kaldor on Oil and Human Rights in Azerbaijan which will appear in a book edited by the Norwegian Center for Human Rights.
Terry Karl
Terry Karl is Professor of Political Science and Senior
Fellow, at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She
has published widely on comparative politics and international relations, with
special emphasis on the politics of oil-exporting countries, transitions to
democracy, problems of inequality, human rights and civil wars, and
contemporary Latin American politics. Her research draws upon field work
conducted in Venezuela, Mexico, Central America, Cuba, Chile, South Africa,
Chad, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and
Hungary. Karl is the author of the Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro
States University of California Press 1997.
Jenny Pearce
Jenny Pearce is Professor in the Department of Peace Studies University of Bradford. She
teachs in Latin American Politics and Development. She joined the Department of Peace Studies in 1991 and before that worked for the Latin America Bureau, an independent research center. Most recently she has worked and published on the democratic transition in Chile, issues of conflict and post conflict reconstruction in Central America, Colombia and Peru, and the problem of civil society in Latin America. She is currently co authoring a book on Civil Society and Development with Dr Jude Howell of UEA. Ms. Pearce has worked for many years in Latin America. Her most recent field research for the Inter Agency Group (Save the Children Fund, Oxfam, CAFOD, Christian Aid and CIIR) was on Oil, Conflict and Development in Casanare Colombia.
Robin Luckham
Robin Luckham is a senior fellow of the Institute for Development Studies at Sussex University. He has written extensively about militarism and democracy in Africa, especially Nigeria. His books include The Nigerian Military: a sociological analysis of authority and revolt 1960 67 Cambridge University Press, 1971 and (together with Gordon White) Democratization in the South: The Jagged Wave Manchester University Press, 1996
Kirsten Schulze
Kirsten E. Schulze is Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics researching ethnic and communal conflicts in Indonesia and the Middle East. Her publications include 'The struggle for an independent Aceh: the ideology, capacity and strategy of GAM' in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (2003)and a forthcoming co-authored book on democratisation and conflict in Indonesia.
bibliography
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Carnegie Corporation 1997 Preventing Deadly Conflicts Carnegie Corporation, Washington DC
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Gelb, Alan 1988, Oil Windfalls: Blessing or Curse? Washington DC, World Bank, Oxford University Press
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Kaldor, Mary 1999 New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era Cambridge, Polity Press
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Rupersinghe, Kumar 1998 Civil Wars, Civil Peace: An Introduction to Conflict Resolution Chicago, Pluto Press
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