New Research: Sovereignty, the ‘resource curse’ and the limits of good governance: a political economy of oil in Ghana

Jon Phillips [kcl.ac.uk], Elena Hailwood and Andrew Brooks [kcl.ac.uk], all King's College London

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Sovereignty, the ‘resource curse’ and the limits of good governance: a political economy of oil in Ghana

Abstract:

The idea of a resource curse has influenced policy makers and led to calls for good governance to avoid the pitfalls of oil sector development. Through discussion of Ghana’s recent insertion into the global political economy of oil, this paper describes the limits of the resource curse framing and associated liberal institutional management approaches to the inherently political nature of oil exploration and production. The paper describes ways in which sovereignty has been exercised both in opposition to and in support of foreign capital, and the role of discourses of ‘good governance’ in structuring the material politics of resource access.

Published in Review of African Political Economy, available here [tandfonline.com].