Oil wealth and the poverty of politics : Algeria compared

Bibliographic Information

Oil wealth and the poverty of politics : Algeria compared

Miriam R. Lowi

(Cambridge Middle East studies, 32)

Cambridge University Press, 2009

  • : hardback

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-221) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

How can we make sense of Algeria's post-colonial experience - the tragedy of unfulfilled expectations, the descent into violence, the resurgence of the state? Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics explains why Algeria's domestic political economy unravelled from the mid-1980s, and how the regime eventually managed to regain power and hegemony. Miriam Lowi argues the importance of leadership decisions for political outcomes, and extends the argument to explain the variation in stability in oil-exporting states following economic shocks. Comparing Algeria with Iran, Iraq, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, she asks why some states break down and undergo regime change, while others remain stable, or manage to re-stabilise after a period of instability. In contrast with exclusively structuralist accounts of the rentier state, this book demonstrates, in a fascinating and accessible study, that political stability is a function of the way in which structure and agency combine.

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Part I. Introduction: 1. Oil shocks and the challenge to states
  • 2. Natural resources and political instability
  • Part II. Algeria and its Discontents: 3. From conquest to independence
  • 4. The elaboration of a system
  • 5. From boom to bust, and ... verging on breakdown
  • 6. The persistence of violence and the process of re-equilibration
  • Part III. Comparisons and Conclusions: 7. Variations on a theme: comparators in the Muslim world
  • 8. Oil wealth and the poverty of politics
  • Bibliography.

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Details

  • NCID
    BB00446419
  • ISBN
    • 9780521113182
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge, U.K.
  • Pages/Volumes
    xix, 228 p.
  • Size
    24 cm
  • Classification
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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