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Energy & democracy / Working Paper

The politics of energy

12/09/2008 By Jos Boonstra, Edward Burke, Richard Youngs

Corbis
Expanding upon the conclusions identified in FRIDE WP 65 "Energy: a reinforced obstacle to democracy?", this paper by Jos Boonstra, Edward Burke and Richard Youngs adopts a case study approach to evaluate the complex relationship between energy and democracy.

Using the examples of Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, the authors observe that while high energy prices have undoubtedly empowered the regimes of these countries, rising expectations regarding the use of natural resource wealth have also led to increased popular protest against the mismanagement of state revenues.

They explore the notion that while it would be too simplistic to presume that democracy support has been entirely over-ridden by energy security concerns, both the US and the EU need to focus far more consistently and systematically on the new concern with ‘energy governance’ if they are to have the kind of positive impact necessary for their own longer-term security interests.


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Keywords

Azerbaijan Democracy Democratic control Energy Energy Security Energy Supply European Union Middle East Nigeria Saudi Arabia West Africa

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Bio author: Jos Boonstra

Jos Boonstra is senior researcher in the democratisation programme of FRIDE. He focusses on EU, NATO and OSCE policies in Eastern Europe and beyond with specific attention to democratisation of security and defence.

Bio author: Edward Burke

Edward Burke is a Researcher at FRIDE's Democratisation Programme who analyses political reform trends in the Persian Gulf region, including the GCC states, Iraq and Yemen. He is also working on an ongoing project to evaluate the relationship between energy security and democracy. Edward holds an MA degree in War Studies from King's College London.

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Democratisation programme at FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.