Pushing the Boundaries of the Resource Curse: New Directions in Oil and Politics

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

As the research program on resource politics evolves, the limitations of observationally driven cross-country research has pushed scholars to employ new tools, and to ask different questions, to move us closer to understanding underlying relationships. This panel brings together scholars using new methods, asking new questions, and elaborating our understanding of how resource wealth shapes political outcomes at multiple levels. Robert Kubinec and Helen Milner employ a survey experiment to explore how Algerians’ views of national oil wealth and governance are shaped by socioeconomic status. Evelyn Simoni, Michael Ross, and Paasha Mahdavi bring new original data to bear on the domestic determinants of fuel subsidy reforms and to understand why they so often fail. Delgerjargal Uvsh explores how Russian regions responded divergently to permanent, and temporary, oil price shocks by improving governance or conversely by making short-term hedges. Finally, Muharrem Bagriyanik, Ben Smith, and Adam Bernstein use the synthetic control method to explore oil’s impact on development outcomes in Africa since independence. Together, the papers reveal a more nuanced role for fossil fuel endowments than the traditional resource curse model allows for, and suggest promising new avenues for future research.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Resource Curse Reversal? Negative Shocks and Development in Russian Regions - Delgerjargal Uvsh, University of Texas at Austin

• Paradox of Plenty or Oil Blessing? Counterfactual Evidence from Africa - Muharrem Bagriyanik, University of Florida; Ben Smith, University of Florida; Adam Newman Bernstein

• When, How, and Why Do Oil Rich Countries Reduce Fossil Fuel Subsidies? - Paasha Mahdavi, University of California, Santa Barbara; Michael L. Ross, University of California, Los Angeles; Evelyn Simoni, UCLA

• Taxes in a Time of Revolution: A Rentier State Experiment during Algeria's Hirak - Robert Kubinec, University of South Carolina; Helen V. Milner, Princeton University

Chair

• Pauline Jones University of Michigan

Discussants

• Pauline Jones University of Michigan

• Jessica Steinberg Indiana University- International Studies