Author: Timothy Mitchell
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1781681163
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Get Book Here
Book Description
“A brilliant, revisionist argument that places oil companies at the heart of 20th century history—and of the political and environmental crises we now face.” —Guardian Oil is a curse, it is often said, that condemns the countries producing it to an existence defined by war, corruption and enormous inequality. Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy. Timothy Mitchell begins with the history of coal power to tell a radical new story about the rise of democracy. Coal was a source of energy so open to disruption that oligarchies in the West became vulnerable for the first time to mass demands for democracy. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the development of cheap and abundant energy from oil, most notably from the Middle East, offered a means to reduce this vulnerability to democratic pressures. The abundance of oil made it possible for the first time in history to reorganize political life around the management of something now called “the economy” and the promise of its infinite growth. The politics of the West became dependent on an undemocratic Middle East. In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable. Foreign intervention and military rule are faltering in the Middle East, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy—the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order. In making the production of energy the central force shaping the democratic age, Carbon Democracy rethinks the history of energy, the politics of nature, the theory of democracy, and the place of the Middle East in our common world.
Author: Keith Crane
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833047000
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127
Get Book Here
Book Description
Assesses economic, political, and military concerns arising from the United States' dependence on foreign oil.
Author: Jeff D. Colgan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107311292
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Get Book Here
Book Description
Oil is the world's single most important commodity and its political effects are pervasive. Jeff D. Colgan extends the idea of the resource curse into the realm of international relations, exploring how countries form their foreign policy preferences and intentions. Why are some but not all oil-exporting 'petrostates' aggressive? To answer this question, a theory of aggressive foreign policy preferences is developed and then tested, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Petro-Aggression shows that oil creates incentives that increase a petrostate's aggression, but also incentives for the opposite. The net effect depends critically on its domestic politics, especially the preferences of its leader. Revolutionary leaders are especially significant. Using case studies including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, this book offers new insight into why oil politics has a central role in global peace and conflict.
Author: David M. Wight
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501715747
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Get Book Here
Book Description
In Oil Money, David M. Wight offers a new framework for understanding the course of Middle East–US relations during the 1970s and 1980s: the transformation of the US global empire by Middle East petrodollars. During these two decades, American, Arab, and Iranian elites reconstituted the primary role of the Middle East within the global system of US power from a supplier of cheap crude oil to a source of abundant petrodollars, the revenues earned from the export of oil. In the 1970s, the United States and allied monarchies, including the House of Pahlavi in Iran and the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, utilized petrodollars to undertake myriad joint initiatives for mutual economic and geopolitical benefit. These petrodollar projects were often unprecedented in scope and included multibillion-dollar development projects, arms sales, purchases of US Treasury securities, and funds for the mujahedin in Afghanistan. Although petrodollar ties often augmented the power of the United States and its Middle East allies, Wight argues they also fostered economic disruptions and state-sponsored violence that drove many Americans, Arabs, and Iranians to resist Middle East–US interdependence, most dramatically during the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Deftly integrating diplomatic, transnational, economic, and cultural analysis, Wight utilizes extensive declassified records from the Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations, the IMF, the World Bank, Saddam Hussein's regime, and private collections to make plain the political economy of US power. Oil Money is an expansive yet judicious investigation of the wide-ranging and contradictory effects of petrodollars on Middle East–US relations and the geopolitics of globalization.
Author: James Z. Pugash
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Energy policy
Languages : en
Pages : 96
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Jeffrey R. Macris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135189439
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 726
Get Book Here
Book Description
Since the 19th century the Gulf region has been an area of intense interest, having been influenced first by the British and more recently by the Americans. This book charts the changing security and political priorities of these two powers and how they have shaped the region. Adopting a narrative approach, the author provides background history on British involvement from the 19th century and a detailed analysis of the years after the Second World War, when oil supply became more critical. He covers the growth of US influence and the British withdrawal, and follows more recent changes as the US built up its military presence following Desert Storm and the invasion of Iraq. Looking at the three enduring missions fulfilled by the British - maintaining interstate order, protecting the free flow of commerce, which later included petroleum; and keeping out other Great Powers – the book demonstrates how these had by 1991 been assumed almost entirely by the American leaders. A comprehensive and thorough look at the history of the Gulf and the contemporary issues affecting the region, this will be essential reading for students of Middle East history, military history and diplomatic history. Visit the author's website at www.thepoliticsandsecurityofthegulf.com
Author: Abdulaziz Al_Sowayegh
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000906892
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Get Book Here
Book Description
First Published in 1984, Arab Petro-Politics argues that oil is important to Arab world both as an instrument for economic development and as an element of political influence. Oil has changed the political and economic structures and policies in the Middle East and dramatically influenced political alignments both within the region and between the region and the world’s greatest powers. The book seeks to explain Arab oil policy both in economic terms and as political leverage to support Arab demands. Its main thesis is that the oil crisis is inextricably part of the Arab Israeli conflict despite the tendency amongst Western Middle East specialists to separate oil question from the Palestinian issue. This book is an important historical document for scholars and researchers of international oil economics, Middle East politics, and Middle East history.
Author: F. William Engdahl
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781615774920
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
"Control the oil and you control entire nations," said Kissinger. Oil is an instrument of world domination in the grip of the Anglo-American empire. This is a story about power, power over entire nations and continents. Century of War is a gripping account of the murky world of the international oil industry and its role in world politics. Scandals about oil are familiar to most of us. From George W. Bush's election victory to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US politics and oil enjoy a controversially close relationship. William Engdahl takes the reader through a history of the oil industry's grip on the world economy. His revelations are startling. A thin red line runs through modern world history, covered in oil and blood. This book is not for the faint of heart, but for those who can see beyond the daily media manipulation of reality that is called news.
Author: M. S. Daoudi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429717822
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Get Book Here
Book Description
The 1983 collapse of world oil prices revived memories of a time only a decade earlier when the price of a barrel of oil did not exceed three dollars. By the late 1970s, spot market prices had reached peaks of forty dollars a barrel. A major role in creating these new realities was played by the 1973/1974 Arab oil embargo, which formed the psychological, political, and market conditions for the dramatic price surge. This important study probes the embargo in detail, thoroughly examining its history, the motivations that caused it, and its ripple effect on world politics and the international economic order. The authors carefully examine the interruption of oil supplies to Western Europe during the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, the growing momentum of Arab oil leverage beginning with the First Arab Petroleum Congress in 1959, the decline of the oil companies' domination of the petroleum industry, and the Arab political environment between the 1967 Arab defeat and the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The book concludes with a chapter addressing the lessons to be learned from these recent embargoes.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Foreign Affairs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Get Book Here
Book Description
