Oil policy

The political dimension of natural resources extraction activities arouses growing interest, both among researchers in the social sciences and among development organizations. This book is the result of this interest and it has, among other merits, that of approaching the relationship between the mining sector and politics from a specific space and a concrete resource, and to do it from a regional and compared point of view.

The Gulf of Guinea, an oil producer since the 1960s thanks to Nigeria, has become in recent decades a strategic source of fossil fuels, as deposits have been discovered in other countries in the region, and that conflicts in other producing regions have prompted major consumers to diversify their supplies. The appearance of new consumers like China and India has strengthened competition for African crude. No more than other producing states, African states are not immune to the presence of crude and the activities of extractive companies. Oliveira shows how the Gulf of Guinea has been formed historically, not only as a set of postcolonial states but also of petroleum states, and how this explains many political dynamics that mark the region.

The book takes the reader from one country to another, and from one actor to another, offering a polyhedral panorama: from the State as an institution to the governing elites and to the oil companies, by passing, although with less attention, by the governments of the consumer countries and international agencies and organizations. Focusing on actors, local or foreign, and on their strategies aims to go beyond simplistic analyzes which see the political situations of producing countries as consequences of an international order characterized by the dependence of peripheral areas compared to developed countries, but also of vogue visions in international organizations which explain poverty and conflicts often characterizing the producing areas Conversion of oil wealth in development.

Oliveira is rather part of the vast literature on the rental states and the “ resource curse », Sensitive to the constitutive role of mining in the articulation of state power. His focus on the particular aspects and the concrete history of the Gulf of Guinea allows him to go beyond the excessively general nature from which the analyzes of these concepts sometimes suffer. At the same time, he seeks to combine the theory “ universalist From the annual state to reading the postcolonial state proposed by African studies. The book is also a reflection on international relations, on links, complex and specific, which connect rich places and poor places, and on the constitutive role of certain actors in this relationship.

Oil and construction of “ Failed states »»

From this point of view, Oliveira shows how relations between private oil companies and states of the Gulf of Guinea have contributed to the construction of “ Failed states “, Unable to administer their entire territory and provide services to a population plunged into poverty and insecurity. But it also shows that these relations allowed the survival of the state itself, and the prosperity of those who occupy it, largely thanks to the need that the oil industry has of the International Convention of the “ sovereignty ». In this situation, the losers are numerous, but the gain of some is so substantial that the situation becomes controllable, even in the midst of insecurity, misery and conflict. The former war in Angola, the current situation in the Niger Delta or Chad, or the poverty and systematic violation of human rights in countries like Equatorial Guinea or Gabon, occur that the local or transnational elite accumulates considerable powers and wealth.

This book mainly talks to us about “ winners This situation, without much considering the social dynamics and the varied strategies aroused by oil among the populations. Also appear in the background of the actors who may deserve more attention, such as international financial institutions and governments of the countries of origin of oil companies, in particular that of China, summarily treated towards the end of the book. The author is not interested either in local and transnational, violent or peaceful movements, which denounce the extraction of minerals and hydrocarbons, and which are also part of the configuration of power in the region.

This book tries to sketch a balance, not always satisfactory, between the general and the particular, the explanatory and the understanding, where the first often prevails. Without ceasing to show the peculiarities of each of the cases, by his deep knowledge of the terrain, the author reveals more the common political dynamics that he enlightens the differences between places as diverse as the Niger Delta, Kribi-at the end of the Chad-Cameroon-, or Malabo-capital of Equatorial Guinea. Likewise, his historical sensitivity is clearer in certain chapters than in others. One can also wonder if the work does not exaggerate the specificity of the oil state in the Gulf of Guinea, thus depriving ourselves of the possibility of interesting parallels with other forms of extraversion of power in postcolonial areas.

The book also demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining a regional perspective when the states continue to be the main unit of analysis, which goes from one country to another, making little reference to cross -border processes and influences between different countries. The importance of the State as a legal subject in the context of oil exploitation may make it difficult to overcome a form of “ Methodological Statism ». In short, Oliveira places at the center of his treatment in the history of the Gulf of Guinea the question of oil production, and does it from a wide variety of theoretical references, with which he debates throughout the book. With regard to empirical material, the author succeeds in honorably overcoming the difficulties of access to primary sources in a secret, even dangerous sector, such as that of relations between companies and governments. It is therefore a reference book for those who want to think about the political implications of the extraction of natural resources and its transnational connections in the production places.