The Politics of an Oil Crash:
How the 2020 Oil Shock Affected Political Settlements in Nigeria and Implications for Future Shocks

February 2023

From the Nigerian people to scholars, and even Nigerian government officials, the Nigerian government is often described as an elite cartel focused on dividing up the immense oil spoils. Oil has historically accounted for 65 – 85 percent of government revenues, but what happens when the oil money dries up? What happens when Nigeria’s rentier state loses its main source of revenue? While this was once a distant question, the 2020 twin demand and supply shocks to oil have not only brought this question center stage but have also provided evidence of how traumatic decarbonization, rapid loss of oil revenues, will affect contemporary Nigerian politics.

Download the full report here. This report is part of the Carbon Compacts, Decarbonization, and Fragile States in Africa and the Middle East research project conducted by the World Peace Foundation and funded by the United States Institute of Peace.

Energy Transition in Fragile States: A Critical Primer

Co-authored with Tarun Gopalakrishnan

January 2023

There is increasing global recognition of the need to move away from carbon-based fuels towards renewable energy sources in order to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. What are the distributional implications of this transition? While there are numerous analyses focused on Western and developed countries, how will it impact fragile states, especially those which produce fossil fuels? This is the driving question we seek to answer in this paper. 

Download the full report here. This report is part of the Carbon Compacts, Decarbonization, and Fragile States in Africa and the Middle East research project conducted by the World Peace Foundation and funded by the United States Institute of Peace.

The Politics and Profit of a Crisis:
A Political Marketplace Analysis of the Humanitarian Crisis in Northeast Nigeria

February 2022

A manmade humanitarian crisis is a tragedy, but for some, it is also a lucrative opportunity. As the crisis deepens prompting massive security and humanitarian spending, along with the increasing cost of rebuilding, for certain individuals, the ensuing crisis economy becomes more lucrative than the peacetime economy. While some benefit, millions suffer. The crisis in northeast Nigeria epitomizes this dynamic.  In 2015, President Buhari declared a “technical victory” over Boko Haram, yet seven years later, the insurgency raged on, and the humanitarian crisis reached new heights with more than 4 million in the northeast facing critical food insecurity. Using the political marketplace framework, this paper analyses the politics behind the crisis and how competitive, rent-seeking politics caused and have perpetuated the manmade crisis in the northeast. This analysis covers the genesis and evolution of the crisis from the late 1990s through March 2022. The author argues that efforts to end the crisis have been undermined by those who benefit from a continued crisis economy funded by security, humanitarian, and development rents.  This paper describes the evolution and competition of these interests, along with the interplay between the humanitarian response and political marketplace dynamics.

Download the full report here. This report was completed as part of the Conflict Research Programme, a research program funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.

Decarbonization and Political Transformation in Iraq:
Impact on Politics, Society, and Regional Relations

Co-authored with Shahla Al-Kli

February 2023

What happens when a petrostate loses its oil rents? While the oil market continues to go through boom-and-bust cycles, cases such as Iraq provide evidence of how the rapid loss of oil revenues—traumatic decarbonization—may affect the politics and stability of these petrostates. In Iraq, multiple shocks to oil revenues from 2014 through 2020 fundamentally altered the organization and concentration of political power in Iraq with destabilizing and democratic consequences. Using the Political Marketplace Framework as an analytic framework, this paper argues that the successive traumatic shocks to Iraq’s oil revenues bankrupted the government triggering a nominal decentralization process, the fracturing of sectarian power, and contributed to a breakdown of sectarianism among the Iraqi people. 

Download the full report here. This report is part of the Carbon Compacts, Decarbonization, and Fragile States in Africa and the Middle East research project conducted by the World Peace Foundation and funded by the United States Institute of Peace. 

Read more about Shahla’s work here.

Somalia’s Politics: The Usual Business?
A Synthesis Paper of the Conflict Research Programme

Authored with Nisar Masjid, Aditya Sarkar, Claire Elder, Khalif Abdirahman, Sarah Detzner, and Alex de Waal

2021

This paper presents a synthesis of material developed under the CRP (Somalia) to reflect on elections in light of the underlying political economy and political marketplace within the country. It applies the political marketplace framework (PMF) and aims to inform policy thinking. Rather than being predictive, it tries to identify the facets of Somalia’s political system that will play a role in these elections – the broad question of interest to the paper is: what role do elections play in Somalia’s current political (un)settlement, why have they become crucially important, and who benefits from them being conducted in certain ways? The elections are important in themselves in that they signify at least some adherence to international norms, which serve to secure resources and the basis for unending negotiation.

Download the full report here. This report was completed as part of the Conflict Research Programme, a research program funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.