Governing extractive industries

Politics, histories, ideas

Bibliographic Data

ID6028593
AuthorsLaura Smith (0000-0001-5151-8641, University of Leeds, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume118
Issue472
Pages599-601
Publication date2019-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeREVIEW
Review ofGoverning Extractive Industries: Politics, Histories, Ideas, Anthony J Bebbington, 2018
VenueAfrican Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0001-9909 • E-ISSN: 1468-2621
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/afraf/adz022
OpenAlexW2963719569
LanguageEN
Citations received1

This book builds on two decades of academic enquiry into the apparent paradox between natural resource wealth and negative development outcomes. It takes a historical perspective to explore the conditions under which institutions effecting natural resources governance have emerged over time, and how these affect development in four country case studies: Peru, Bolivia, Zambia, and Ghana. In the 1990s, the idea of a ‘resource curse’ became a popular framework through which to account for the correlation between a country’s resource wealth and poor economic performance, widening inequalities, corruption, and conflict. Although the curse thesis has been critiqued and qualified in the literature, explaining the paradox remains an important area of investigation, especially considering the continued promotion of extractivism as the key driver of economic growth across the Global South. Approaches to the governance of the sector have largely focused on ‘getting the institutions right’ at the national level, and as such, failures to avoid the pitfalls associated with natural resource wealth are seen as a problem of weak national level governance institutions. One starting point of the book is that although important, weak national level institutions cannot by themselves sufficiently explain adverse development outcomes. Resource governance is shaped both by historical social power relations that are context specific and transnational forces that often are beyond the control of the national state.

Context (archaeology) · Corporate governance · Curse · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Geography · Language change · Natural resource · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Promotion (chess) · Resource (disambiguation) · Resource curse · Sociology · Law · Natural Resources and Economic Development

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