Title: State, civil society and natural resource rents: a theoretical outline

Authors: Matías Scaglione

Addresses: Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, 201 E. Washington Ave., Room E100, Madison, WI 53707, USA

Abstract: This paper aims to outline the influence of natural resource rents on the state and civil society in resource-rich nations. It discusses the virtues and deficiencies of the two main theoretical approaches to the problem, the 'state capacity approach' and the 'resource curse approach', and argues that both frameworks are useful and complementary, but insufficient to fully understand the phenomenon. They are useful and complementary because they focus on the central role of state capacity while identifying a connection with the presence of relatively-abundant natural resource rents. They are insufficient, however, because they fail to explore the causes and consequences of such connection, particularly those around the relationship between state capacity and developmental outcomes. Although only preliminary elements are provided, the paper concludes, focusing on the case of the oil economy, that non-developmental configurations of the state and civil society are contingent on the reproduction of elites in power and decisively shaped by the uncontrolled and volatile flow of natural-resource rents.

Keywords: natural resource rents; state capacity; Dutch disease; developmental state; civil society; oil economy; petrostate; resource curse; natural resources; manufacturing decline; gas exports.

DOI: 10.1504/LAJMSD.2014.059792

Latin American Journal of Management for Sustainable Development, 2014 Vol.1 No.1, pp.7 - 16

Received: 04 Jun 2013
Accepted: 28 Oct 2013

Published online: 30 May 2014 *

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