The “Resource Curse” in MENA? Political Transitions, Resource Wealth, Economic Shocks, and Conflict Risk

Ross, Michael ; Kaiser, Kai ; Mazaheri, Nimah

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ADVANCED ECONOMIES;    ADVERSE IMPACTS;    ARMED CONFLICT;    ARMED CONFLICTS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5742
RP-ID  :  WPS5742

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The recent political upheavals in theMiddle East and North Africa region have exposed growingconcerns about conflict risk, political stability, andreform prospects across its societies. Given the prevalenceof oil and gas resource endowments in the region, which avoluminous literature suggests can be associated withadverse development consequences, this paper examines theinterplay between their associated rents and politicaleconomy trajectories. The contribution of the paper isthreefold: first, to examine the quantitative evidence ofviolent conflict in the region since 1960; second, toprovide a nuanced review of the regional case studyliterature on the relationship between resource endowments,political stability, and conflict risk; and third, to assesshow prospective political transitions have implications forthe World Bank Group's work in the region on publicsector management and private sector development. Theauthors find that resources and regimes have intersected toprovide stability and limited violent conflict in theregion, but that these development patterns have yielded aset of policy choices and development patterns that areproving increasingly brittle and unsustainable. A majorinstitutional challenge for reforms will be to consolidate arequisite degree of inter-temporal credibility and stabilityin these regimes, while expanding inclusiveness instate-society relations.