Read more
Power Grab shows that controlling the means of production of oil and minerals determines the rise and fall of political leaders. Nationalization - seizing operations for the state - is a gamble: its immediate windfalls can fortify the foundations of enduring rule, or its operational costs can risk future prosperity and political survival.
List of contents
1. The puzzle of extractive resource nationalization; 2. The theory of political survival through nationalization; 3. Defining and measuring operational nationalization; 4. Why nationalize? Evidence from national oil companies around the world; 5. NOCs, oil revenues, and leadership survival; 6. The dynamics of nationalization in Pahlavi Iran; 7. Conclusion: the implications of nationalization.
About the author
Paasha Mahdavi is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research on energy governance and political economy has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Nature Energy, and World Politics, among other journals, and has received media attention from The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Mahdavi earned his M.S. in Statistics and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has held fellowships at the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy, the Payne Institute, and the World Economic Forum, and currently serves as Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Summary
Power Grab shows that controlling the means of production of oil and minerals determines the rise and fall of political leaders. Nationalization - seizing operations for the state - is a gamble: its immediate windfalls can fortify the foundations of enduring rule, or its operational costs can risk future prosperity and political survival.
Foreword
Explores how dictators maintain their grip on power by seizing control of oil, metals, and minerals production.
Additional text
'Challenging conventional understandings of resource nationalization as the domain of strong rulers whose tenures are secure, Paasha Mahdavi carefully maps out and then demonstrates how much nationalization is in fact a strategy borne of political insecurity. Power Grab deftly weaves cross-national econometrics and carefully crafted comparative historical analysis to show how. Mahdavi's analysis of the domestic and global-economic milieu in which leaders like Qaddafi gambled on, and won through, resource seizures, represents an ambitious and formidable new scholarly voice in the study of resource politics.' Benjamin Smith, University of Florida
