Authors: Terry Lynn Karl
ISBN-13: 9780520207721, ISBN-10: 0520207726
Format: Paperback
Publisher: University of California Press
Date Published: October 1997
Edition: 1st Edition
Terry Lynn Karl is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University.
The Paradox of Plenty explains why, in the midst of two massive oil booms in the 1970s, oil-exporting governments as different as Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria, Algeria, and
Indonesia chose common development paths and suffered similarly disappointing outcomes. Meticulously documented and theoretically innovative, this book illuminates the manifold factorseconomic, political, and socialthat determine the nature of the oil state, from the coherence of public bureaucracies, to the degree of centralization, to patterns of policy-making.
Karl contends that oil countries, while seemingly disparate, are characterized by similar social classes and patterns of collective action.
In these countries, dependence on petroleum leads to disproportionate fiscal reliance on petrodollars and public spending, at the expense of statecraft. Oil booms, which create the illusion of prosperity and development, actually destabilize regimes by reinforcing oil-based interests and further weakening state capacity.
Karl's incisive investigation unites structural and choice-based approaches by illuminating how decisions of policymakers are embedded in institutions interacting with domestic and international markets. This approachwhich Karl dubs "structured contingency"uses a state's leading sector as the starting point for identifying a range of decision-making choices, and ends by examining the dynamics of the state itself.
This is a stimulating and thought provoking book in which the author has tried to explain that single commodity-led economic growth induces similar development strategies in countries with different cultural backgrounds and political regimes.
List of Figures and Tables | ||
Preface | ||
1 | The Modern Myth of King Midas: Structure, Choice, and the Development Trajectory of States | 3 |
2 | Spanish Gold to Black Gold: Commodity Booms Then and Now | 23 |
3 | The Special Dilemma of the Petro-State | 44 |
4 | The Making of a Petro-State | 71 |
5 | Oil and Regime Change: The Institutions of Pacted Democracy | 92 |
6 | The Instant Impact of a Bonanza | 116 |
7 | The Politics of Rent Seeking | 138 |
8 | From Boom to Bust: The Crisis of Venezuelan Democracy | 161 |
9 | Petro-States in Comparative Perspective | 189 |
10 | Commodities, Booms, and States Revisited | 222 |
Research Note | 243 | |
Statistical Appendix | 245 | |
Statistical Appendix Citations | 274 | |
Notes | 275 | |
Bibliography | 299 | |
Index | 333 |