A God-given blessing or the Devils’ excrement? An enquiry into oil and interstate conflict

Abstract

This thesis seeks to examine the relationship between oil rents and interstate conflict, in particular, the quantitative testing of Militarised Interstate Disputes within a cross-section of 15 Middle Eastern countries. The thesis initially moves the discussion beyond the idea of ‘resource wars’ where it is argued that it is a thing of the past. Instead it advocates for the idea of Petro-aggression, as offered by Colgan. However, the thesis does not attempt nor consider ‘revolutionary governments’ to be an adequate causal mechanism, rather, it opts for military expenditure as a key variable. Drawing from literature on Resource Curse Theory and Rentierism, the thesis theorises that oil rents amplify mechanisms of security dilemma and information asymmetry, as outlined by the bargaining theorists. However, It finds that whilst petrostates are more likely to spend in their militaries, they are no more likely to instigate Militarised Interstate Disputes than non-Petrostates. Instead, the thesis finds that petrostates, protected by a norm of integrity, are less likely to be recipient of sanctions since they are able to foster political rapport with greater powers via increased military spending.