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Title The Politics of Oil in the Somali Territories
Full text http://rudar.ruc.dk/handle/1800/24913
Date 2015
Author(s) Skovsted, Kristian; Bamberger, Jakob Grandjean
Contributor(s) Hagmann, Tobias
Abstract This investigation explores the politics of oil in the Somali territories of Somaliland, Puntland, the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, and South-Central Somalia with a specific focus on the causal mechanisms between oil exploration and exploitation, and conflict dynamics. The main argument put forward is that the on-going oil exploration and likely future oil exploitation will exacerbate already existing conflicts and possibly ignite new conflicts. Each of the conflict locations analysed have idiosyncratic conflict dynamics but common to them all is that the myriad of different and contradictory modes of governance and overlapping territorial claims have shown to further complicate and intensify the negative tendencies associated with the politics of oil. The thesis includes a comprehensive mapping of all current oil exploration sites with an identification of the involved oil companies and the different polities. The thesis is, furthermore, a significant contribution to the literature on emerging oil producers, as the analysis reveals that the mere belief in the existence of oil is sufficient to trigger a number of the negative consequences associated with the resource curse such as corruption, creeping authoritarianism, and violent conflict. The thesis shows that the politics of oil is permeating Somali politics in general even at the current stage where oil is yet to be discovered in commercial quantities.
Subject(s) Resource curse; Politics of oil; Somali territories; Oil; Conflict; Clan
Language en
Type of publication Thesis; Globale studier / Global studies - Master thesis
Repository Roskilde - Roskilde University Digital Archive (RUDAR)
Added to C-A: 2015-09-14;09:42:03