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EXTRACTIVISM Lecture Series 22/23: Petrolism in the Middle East
24.11.2022 in Kassel: Petrolism in the Middle East (Prof. Dr. Martin Beck, University of Kurdistan Hewlêr).
Research on world regions as diverse as, in particular, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa has shown that petroleum and the rent incomes derived from its export have a high formative power everywhere. However, this imprinting power certainly takes different forms depending on regional contextual conditions. Due to the abundance of hydrocarbon rents in the Arabian Gulf Peninsula since the oil revolution in the early 1970s, a regional system based on commodity rents has emerged in the form of petrolism, which, beyond the oil-producing Gulf monarchies, has also left its mark on the Middle Eastern states endowed with only few or no commodity deposits - especially Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon . In this context, the transnational distribution of rents between the resource-rich but population-poor Arab Gulf states and the resource-poor but population-rich Mashreq countries runs through two channels: Budget remittances and investments by the Arab Gulf monarchies (and Iran in the case of Lebanese Hezbollah) into the Mashreq, and labor migration in the opposite direction.
The paper sets itself four tasks. First, it aims to shed light on the formative power of oil extraction for the political economy and regional relations in the Middle East. In doing so, it is important to emphasize that petrolism has created asymmetric interdependencies between states that possess high petroleum rents and those that possess little or no raw materials. The system of petrolism has consolidated the emergence of so-called semi-rentier states, whose political economies resemble those of petroleum rentier states in many ways.
Second, the system of petrolism has faced significant challenges since the 2010s. First, regional events-particularly dislocations related to the "Arab Spring"-and global developments-particularly the 2014 oil price shock-have constituted a trend away from rent abundance toward rent scarcity for the first time since the oil revolution. Given the global energy transition, it seems very likely that this trend will intensify in the medium to long term.
Third, it will be shown that the Gulf monarchies - Saudi Arabia in particular, but also the United Arab Emirates and Qatar - have responded proactively to the new challenges. The remarkable results are not so much the structural adjustments propagated by the Gulf monarchies and the efforts to play an active role in the global energy transition. Rather, it is new forms of petro-aggression and successful rent-seeking adjustments with which some of the Gulf monarchies have made a splash. In particular, the effectiveness of Saudi Arabia-led OPEC+ will be addressed.
The presentation will conclude, fourth, with reflections on how research on extractivism in the Middle East and other regions of the world, which have so far paid insufficient tribute to each other, might learn from each other.
From the series
Climate change and raw materials: risk or opportunity?
Extractivism lecture series in the winter semester 2022/2023
It is already foreseeable that the global importance of raw materials will continue to increase in the coming years. Efforts to make the energy turnaround sustainable for the most part and thus to help shape climate change require that raw materials be given a special status. The desired energy turnaround for the purpose of sustainable climate policy will massively change the raw material basis of the world economy. This will not only mean deep transformation processes for the countries of the Global North, but will also have serious consequences for many countries of the South that depend on raw material exports. This challenges the existing structure of the international system and the global economy.
The lecture series will address this problem context and approach the issues first from the perspective of Latin America and the Maghreb. The contributions focus on the relationship between commodities and climate change from empirical, regional and/or theoretical perspectives. They will be linked by not only analyzing the risks of the relationship between commodities and climate change, but also illuminating possibilities and opportunities.
The lecture series will take place on Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. , alternating between Kassel and Marburg. To participate in the event online, you can register HERE.
27.10.2022 in Kassel: 500 years of interdependence between Latin America and Europe (Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, University of Kassel)
03.11.2022 in Kassel: Amazon, Oil Reserves and Corporate Climate Management: A Brazilian Perspective on the Achievability of the Paris Climate Targets (Prof. Dr. Anita Engels, Thomas Frisch, Solange Commelin; University of Hamburg).
10.11.2022 in Marburg: Patrimonial Capitalism, Pensions and Development (Prof. Dr. Oliver Schlumberger, University of Tübingen)
17.11.2022 in Kassel: Geopolitics of the "Great Transformation" (Prof. Dr. Markus Lederer, Technical University Darmstadt)
24.11.2022 in Kassel: Petrolism in the Middle East (Prof. Dr. Martin Beck, University of Kurdistan Hewlêr)
01.12.2022 in Kassel: Supply Chain Laws and Certification of Resources (Prof. Dr. Lena Partzsch, Freie Universität Berlin)
08.12.2022 in Marburg: Oil and Middle Classes in Iran (Prof. Dr. Mohammed Farzanegan, Philipps-Universität Marburg)
15.12.2022 in Kassel: Circular Economy, Raw Materials and Climate Change (Prof. Dr. Sina Leipold, Environmental Research Center Leipzig)
12.01.2023 in Marburg: Everything flows? The importance of water for the social contract in Morocco (Dr. Annabelle Houdret, German Development Institute, Bonn)
19.01.2023 in Kassel: Is Latin America too rich for development? (Dr. Hannes Warnecke-Berger / Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, University of Kassel)
26.01.2023 in Marburg: Climate change and perspectives of socio-ecological transformation (Prof. Dr. Klaus Dörre, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena)
02.02.2023 in Kassel: News from the "resource curse": On the relationality of unequal development (Prof. Dr. Stephan Lessenich, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
09.02.2022 in Marburg: 500 Years of Interdependence between Maghreb and Europe (Prof. Dr. Rachid Ouaissa, Philipps-Universität Marburg)