Ricardo Soares De Oliveira
Biographic Data
| ID | 3592096 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ricardo Soares De Oliveira |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ricardo Soares |
| FAMILY NAME | De Oliveira |
| SIGNATURE | DE OLIVEIRA R S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4660-6038 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 133 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Offshore finance as statecraft
Nearly three-quarters of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is routed through offshore financial centers (OFCs), a proportion significantly higher than that observed for most Western multinationals. Offshore finance is typically understood as a mechanism of market escape and sovereignty erosion. This article offers an alternative interpretation. Drawing on corporate-level ownership reconstruction and interviews, and focusing on Chin…
Enabling African loots
Transnational kleptocracy and the international political economy of authoritarianism
Portugal and Africa
This chapter studies the set of post-colonial relationships between Portugal and its five former African colonies. It argues that they are fundamentally shaped by the nature of Portuguese colonialism, the patterns of decolonization, and the evolution of societies and political systems over the four decades that elapsed. The chapter first surveys the unsettled character of initial post-colonial relations in the context of the global Cold War, befo…
Researching Africa and the offshore world
One of the key features of today's global economy is an 'offshore world' of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption. While its worldwide impact is very significant, Africa is affected to an unusual extent by the strategies of tax avoidance/evasion, outward financial flows (both legal and illegal) and corruption enabled by the offshore world. This is corroborated by a number…
Governing African oil and gas
Liberation Beyond the Nation
The articles in this special issue were first presented in April 2019 at a conference titled ‘Liberation Beyond the Nation: Comparisons, Interactions and Methodologies’, organised by the editors at
The political economy of banking in Angola
From inauspicious beginnings in a post-socialist, highly dysfunctional financial system, Angolan banking grew in less than a decade after the end of the country’s long civil war into one of Africa’s largest. Fuelled by the country’s oil boom, banks became crucial in articulating Angola’s interactions with the international system as well as a domestic agenda of oligarchic consolidation by the ruling MPLA’s elite. This article describes and analys…
Taming Intervention
A continent that was once the world's most insistent on state sovereignty has become highly tolerant of military intervention
Angola’s elections and the politics of presidential succession
Shortly after the government’s2002 victory against UNITA rebels in the country’s long civil war, Angola became the fastest growing economy in the world. Oil production shot up from one million to just under two million barrels a day between 2002 and 2008, with the price of oil jumping from around $20 to $147 in the same period. GDP increased tenfold between 2002 and 2013, making Angola sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy at $121 billion. A…
The struggle for the state and the politics of belonging in contemporary Angola, 1975-2015
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Angola’s independence, this essay revisits key dimensions of the country’s postcolonial trajectory through the prism of the complex politics of the nationalist struggle and the first decades of self-rule. Its goal is to provide a series of reflections, mostly centred on the MPLA regime, rather than a comprehensive treatment of all political actors in Angolan politics of recent decades. It argues, firstly…
Magnificent and Beggar Land
To Intervene in Darfur, or Not
The outrage over genocidal violence in Sudan provided impetus to “legalise” the concept of humanitarian intervention into a “responsibility to protect” (R2P). However, a decade on, the literature treats Darfur and R2P as coterminous with failure: continued inaction underscored its limitations in delivering protection to civilians. This article argues that this is an impoverished reading, which leaves out important dynamics. The legacy of Darfur i…
Our identity is our currency
Heavyweights of South Africa's ruling African National Congress claim that the responsibility to protect citizens in the case of an unwilling or unable government is an African concept, owned by the continent: rooted in the security–development crisis of the past few decades, Pretoria stresses that there is an intellectual and political history of intervention, separate from Western conceptions of R2P. While the conception of an African responsib…
O Governo Está Aqui”
O Governo Está Aqui
O Governo Está Aqui » : la formation de l'État en sa périphérie dans l'Angola de l'après-guerre Pendant les 27 années que dura la guerre civile angolaise, jusqu'à 80 % du territoire nominal angolais resta hors du contrôle de l'État central. Cependant, après 2002 et la victoire remportée sur les rebelles de l'Unita, le régime MPLA, riche de son pétrole, s'engagea avec enthousiasme à bâtir un prétendu « État moderne » sur l'ensemble du territoire a…
Illiberal peacebuilding in Angola
Angola's oil-fuelled reconstruction since the end of the civil war in 2002 is a world away from the mainstream liberal peacebuilding approach that Western donors have promoted and run since the end of cold war. The Angolan case is a pivotal example of what can be termed 'illiberal peacebuilding', a process of post-war reconstruction managed by local elites in defiance of liberal peace precepts on civil liberties, the rule of law, the expansion of…
Chine-Afrique
L’article identifie les principaux moteurs politiques de l’engagement chinois et en évalue l’impact sur la politique internationale. Le poids politique de la Chine repose sur son essor économique, qui présente des opportunités et des défis pour l’Afrique et pour ses partenaires occidentaux. L’émergence de la Chine comme acteur majeur en Afrique est l’expression la plus flagrante des tendances internationales naissantes, qui ont placé la Chine au …
Business success, Angola-style
This paper investigates a paradoxical case of business success in one of the world's worst-governed states, Angola. Founded in 1976 as the essential tool of the Angolan end of the oil business, Sonangol, the national oil company, was from the very start protected from the dominant (both predatory and centrally planned) logic of Angola's political economy. Throughout its first years, the pragmatic senior management of Sonangol accumulated technica…
Illiberal peacebuilding in Angola
Angola's oil-fuelled reconstruction since the end of the civil war in 2002 is a world away from the mainstream liberal peacebuilding approach that Western donors have promoted and run since the end of cold war. The Angolan case is a pivotal example of what can be termed 'illiberal peacebuilding', a process of post-war reconstruction managed by local elites in defiance of liberal peace precepts on civil liberties, the rule of law, the expansion of…
Business success, Angola-style
This paper investigates a paradoxical case of business success in one of the world's worst-governed states, Angola. Founded in 1976 as the essential tool of the Angolan end of the oil business, Sonangol, the national oil company, was from the very start protected from the dominant (both predatory and centrally planned) logic of Angola's political economy. Throughout its first years, the pragmatic senior management of Sonangol accumulated technica…
The political economy of banking in Angola
From inauspicious beginnings in a post-socialist, highly dysfunctional financial system, Angolan banking grew in less than a decade after the end of the country’s long civil war into one of Africa’s largest. Fuelled by the country’s oil boom, banks became crucial in articulating Angola’s interactions with the international system as well as a domestic agenda of oligarchic consolidation by the ruling MPLA’s elite. This article describes and analys…
Angola’s elections and the politics of presidential succession
Shortly after the government’s2002 victory against UNITA rebels in the country’s long civil war, Angola became the fastest growing economy in the world. Oil production shot up from one million to just under two million barrels a day between 2002 and 2008, with the price of oil jumping from around $20 to $147 in the same period. GDP increased tenfold between 2002 and 2013, making Angola sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy at $121 billion. A…
O Governo Está Aqui
O Governo Está Aqui » : la formation de l'État en sa périphérie dans l'Angola de l'après-guerre Pendant les 27 années que dura la guerre civile angolaise, jusqu'à 80 % du territoire nominal angolais resta hors du contrôle de l'État central. Cependant, après 2002 et la victoire remportée sur les rebelles de l'Unita, le régime MPLA, riche de son pétrole, s'engagea avec enthousiasme à bâtir un prétendu « État moderne » sur l'ensemble du territoire a…
Taming Intervention
A continent that was once the world's most insistent on state sovereignty has become highly tolerant of military intervention
Governing African oil and gas
Transnational kleptocracy and the international political economy of authoritarianism
Our identity is our currency
Heavyweights of South Africa's ruling African National Congress claim that the responsibility to protect citizens in the case of an unwilling or unable government is an African concept, owned by the continent: rooted in the security–development crisis of the past few decades, Pretoria stresses that there is an intellectual and political history of intervention, separate from Western conceptions of R2P. While the conception of an African responsib…
The struggle for the state and the politics of belonging in contemporary Angola, 1975-2015
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Angola’s independence, this essay revisits key dimensions of the country’s postcolonial trajectory through the prism of the complex politics of the nationalist struggle and the first decades of self-rule. Its goal is to provide a series of reflections, mostly centred on the MPLA regime, rather than a comprehensive treatment of all political actors in Angolan politics of recent decades. It argues, firstly…
To Intervene in Darfur, or Not
The outrage over genocidal violence in Sudan provided impetus to “legalise” the concept of humanitarian intervention into a “responsibility to protect” (R2P). However, a decade on, the literature treats Darfur and R2P as coterminous with failure: continued inaction underscored its limitations in delivering protection to civilians. This article argues that this is an impoverished reading, which leaves out important dynamics. The legacy of Darfur i…
Enabling African loots
Researching Africa and the offshore world
One of the key features of today's global economy is an 'offshore world' of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption. While its worldwide impact is very significant, Africa is affected to an unusual extent by the strategies of tax avoidance/evasion, outward financial flows (both legal and illegal) and corruption enabled by the offshore world. This is corroborated by a number…
Liberation Beyond the Nation
The articles in this special issue were first presented in April 2019 at a conference titled ‘Liberation Beyond the Nation: Comparisons, Interactions and Methodologies’, organised by the editors at
Chine-Afrique
L’article identifie les principaux moteurs politiques de l’engagement chinois et en évalue l’impact sur la politique internationale. Le poids politique de la Chine repose sur son essor économique, qui présente des opportunités et des défis pour l’Afrique et pour ses partenaires occidentaux. L’émergence de la Chine comme acteur majeur en Afrique est l’expression la plus flagrante des tendances internationales naissantes, qui ont placé la Chine au …
Business success, Angola-style
This paper investigates a paradoxical case of business success in one of the world's worst-governed states, Angola. Founded in 1976 as the essential tool of the Angolan end of the oil business, Sonangol, the national oil company, was from the very start protected from the dominant (both predatory and centrally planned) logic of Angola's political economy. Throughout its first years, the pragmatic senior management of Sonangol accumulated technica…
Chine-Afrique
L’article identifie les principaux moteurs politiques de l’engagement chinois et en évalue l’impact sur la politique internationale. Le poids politique de la Chine repose sur son essor économique, qui présente des opportunités et des défis pour l’Afrique et pour ses partenaires occidentaux. L’émergence de la Chine comme acteur majeur en Afrique est l’expression la plus flagrante des tendances internationales naissantes, qui ont placé la Chine au …
Illiberal peacebuilding in Angola
Angola's oil-fuelled reconstruction since the end of the civil war in 2002 is a world away from the mainstream liberal peacebuilding approach that Western donors have promoted and run since the end of cold war. The Angolan case is a pivotal example of what can be termed 'illiberal peacebuilding', a process of post-war reconstruction managed by local elites in defiance of liberal peace precepts on civil liberties, the rule of law, the expansion of…
O Governo Está Aqui”
O Governo Está Aqui
O Governo Está Aqui » : la formation de l'État en sa périphérie dans l'Angola de l'après-guerre Pendant les 27 années que dura la guerre civile angolaise, jusqu'à 80 % du territoire nominal angolais resta hors du contrôle de l'État central. Cependant, après 2002 et la victoire remportée sur les rebelles de l'Unita, le régime MPLA, riche de son pétrole, s'engagea avec enthousiasme à bâtir un prétendu « État moderne » sur l'ensemble du territoire a…
Our identity is our currency
Heavyweights of South Africa's ruling African National Congress claim that the responsibility to protect citizens in the case of an unwilling or unable government is an African concept, owned by the continent: rooted in the security–development crisis of the past few decades, Pretoria stresses that there is an intellectual and political history of intervention, separate from Western conceptions of R2P. While the conception of an African responsib…
Magnificent and Beggar Land
To Intervene in Darfur, or Not
The outrage over genocidal violence in Sudan provided impetus to “legalise” the concept of humanitarian intervention into a “responsibility to protect” (R2P). However, a decade on, the literature treats Darfur and R2P as coterminous with failure: continued inaction underscored its limitations in delivering protection to civilians. This article argues that this is an impoverished reading, which leaves out important dynamics. The legacy of Darfur i…
The struggle for the state and the politics of belonging in contemporary Angola, 1975-2015
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Angola’s independence, this essay revisits key dimensions of the country’s postcolonial trajectory through the prism of the complex politics of the nationalist struggle and the first decades of self-rule. Its goal is to provide a series of reflections, mostly centred on the MPLA regime, rather than a comprehensive treatment of all political actors in Angolan politics of recent decades. It argues, firstly…
Taming Intervention
A continent that was once the world's most insistent on state sovereignty has become highly tolerant of military intervention
Angola’s elections and the politics of presidential succession
Shortly after the government’s2002 victory against UNITA rebels in the country’s long civil war, Angola became the fastest growing economy in the world. Oil production shot up from one million to just under two million barrels a day between 2002 and 2008, with the price of oil jumping from around $20 to $147 in the same period. GDP increased tenfold between 2002 and 2013, making Angola sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy at $121 billion. A…
The political economy of banking in Angola
From inauspicious beginnings in a post-socialist, highly dysfunctional financial system, Angolan banking grew in less than a decade after the end of the country’s long civil war into one of Africa’s largest. Fuelled by the country’s oil boom, banks became crucial in articulating Angola’s interactions with the international system as well as a domestic agenda of oligarchic consolidation by the ruling MPLA’s elite. This article describes and analys…
Governing African oil and gas
Liberation Beyond the Nation
The articles in this special issue were first presented in April 2019 at a conference titled ‘Liberation Beyond the Nation: Comparisons, Interactions and Methodologies’, organised by the editors at
Portugal and Africa
This chapter studies the set of post-colonial relationships between Portugal and its five former African colonies. It argues that they are fundamentally shaped by the nature of Portuguese colonialism, the patterns of decolonization, and the evolution of societies and political systems over the four decades that elapsed. The chapter first surveys the unsettled character of initial post-colonial relations in the context of the global Cold War, befo…
Researching Africa and the offshore world
One of the key features of today's global economy is an 'offshore world' of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption. While its worldwide impact is very significant, Africa is affected to an unusual extent by the strategies of tax avoidance/evasion, outward financial flows (both legal and illegal) and corruption enabled by the offshore world. This is corroborated by a number…
Enabling African loots
Transnational kleptocracy and the international political economy of authoritarianism
Offshore finance as statecraft
Nearly three-quarters of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is routed through offshore financial centers (OFCs), a proportion significantly higher than that observed for most Western multinationals. Offshore finance is typically understood as a mechanism of market escape and sovereignty erosion. This article offers an alternative interpretation. Drawing on corporate-level ownership reconstruction and interviews, and focusing on Chin…
Political science (15 works) · Politics (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Political economy (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Economics (7 works) · International Development and Aid (6 works) · Business (4 works) · Economy (4 works) · Geography (4 works)