No / The prime concern by the Nigerian state in the management of the oil conflicts in the Niger Delta has been to maximise oil revenues. What is probably most confounding about this strategy is the evolving tendency to twist and treat every conflict in the Niger Delta, including some episodic 'epi-oil' conflicts abetted or orchestrated by the state itself, as oil conflicts. In other words, there is a tendency on the part of the state to wittingly 'oilify' some apparently extra-oil conflicts. Compared to other regimes before it, the present civilian administration has probably contributed most to the fast-tracking of this evolving phenomenon. This article unravels and analyses the evolving politics of oilification of extra-oil conflicts in the Niger Delta, its underlying rationale and consequences. Oilification, as the study demonstrates, is yet another in the series of dangerous contradictions engendered by the Nigerian state. How this and other dangerous contradictions could possibly be solved is a research conundrum for the relevant cognoscenti of state-society relations and conflicts in Nigeria. But would the Nigerian state take on board any useful and promising solutions materialising from such studies? This is most unlikely in the present conjuncture given the prevailing configuration of interests in the state.

The thesis focuses on the protracted tripartite conflict within and between local oilbearing communities of the Niger Delta on the one hand, and between them, the state and foreign oil multinationals in the region, on the other hand. The focus also centers around how this has attracted international attention and the impact of internationalization on the conflict itself. The series of crises have been underpinned by tortuous issues on the ground for over four decades. There was a new dimension to the struggle in the early 1990s, which redefined the focus of the crises, when organized pressure groups protested against the inhuman and environmental hazards in the region. The thesis therefore examines the interest(s) of the main actors involved in the crisis in the period between 1993 and 2003 in order to establish the issues that accounted for the involvement of the international civil societies. The thesis makes three significant arguments: one, that the differences in interests among the actors in relation to the issue of oil production and its impact on the local people laid the basis for the persistent struggle between the social movements/militant youths on one side and the state and oil multinationals operating in the region on the other. The second argument the thesis advances is that the age-long crisis in the region became an agenda for the international community in the 1990s because of the trend and impact of globalization This invariably allowed international Non-Governmental Organizations to intervene in exerting pressures on oil companies and the state to re-examine their policies in the region. Finally, the recent internationalization of the crisis has not impacted enough to significantly address the demands of the people with the locally based pressure and, later, INGOs. This approach is intended to establish a pattern of alliances in the Niger Delta crisis. It might be healthy to state, ab initio, that there was a convergence of interests between the state and MNOCs on the one hand and between the social movements, local NGOs and INGOs on the other hand. The thesis employed a multivariate form of data collection from primary sources like Multinational Oil Companies in the area especially, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), interviews with local people, NGOs and some government officials, with extensive use of secondary data on the Niger Delta. The study’s findings suggest that the internationalization of the crisis has engendered new approaches and attitudes on the part of the key actors in the Niger Delta. For its part, the state has adopted the agency approach in dealing with the issues confronting the region. Shell has increased its direct intervention efforts in addressing the demands of the local communities. However, these new approaches and attitudes have yielded minimal results in view of the militarization of the Niger Delta through the continuous deployment of troops by the state and the oil multinationals under the guise of security imperatives in response to the people’s agitations, which are poverty driven.

This mixed-method analysis of three Nigerian states explores the ways in which a major policy shift has produced short-term peace outcomes in a vastly contested terrain entailing conflicting interests. The central argument of "Paths to Peacebuilding," is that disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration can create peace in resource-conflicted societies when there is governmental will and community and citizen involvement in both the design and implementation of the program. The overriding concern was whether the DDR process was capable of contributing to tangible improvements in real and perceived safety on the ground as well as destroying the structures that both contributed to and sustained insurgency for over two decades. The disarmament process yielded over 3,000 semi- and fully automatic weapons and other military style hardware. It also resulted in the demobilization of over 26,000 former fighters. The DDR program generated important but geographically differentiated reductions in militant violence across the three states studied. The study analyzes survey and interview data from a random sample of 346 combatants and ex-combatants and other knowledgeable informants in three Niger Delta states - Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa. The dissertation compared DDR success rates between individuals who entered the DDR program and those who did not. An examination of the programming determinants, controlling for non-programmatic factors including community exposure to pollution reveals some evidence of macro success and micro failure. While the program has created a new sense of peace that allows oil corporations to continue oil production unhindered leading to increased oil earnings for the Nigerian state, there is lack of local level support for the program or its participants. For example, findings of significant association between participation in the program and the successful disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of ex-combatants are moderated by participation effects. While evidence of some level of macro success is clearly indicated in addition to some level of impact on the lives of program participants, the failure to adequately link DDR to broad economic and social development programs may obviate the tentative gains made and plunge the region into potentially more devastating rounds of violent insurgency and counter-insurgency.

The thesis "Nigeria in Historic Perspective, Its Foreign Policy and Current Problems"describes a historic development of Nigeria including current political and economic situation after parliamentary and presidental elections in spring 2007. Historical outline forms the introductory part of the thesis, which is followed by general analysis of Nigerian foreign policy and its activity in chosen African and other international organizations. The other part of the chapter contains an analysis of mutual relations between Nigeria and its surrounding states -- Benin, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Next chapter characterizes the oil conflict in the Niger Delta and possible suggestions for its solutions. The closing part presents summary of discovered information.

無 / This thesis highlights the strategic triangle of oil relations between China, the US and Venezuela by analyzing their petro-diplomacy campaigns and domestic oil strategies. Research which has empirically documented the oil conditions of China, Venezuela, and the United States and their use of strategies is scant. Therefore, the aim of this thesis attempts to explore how their oil relations and national oil strategies are related, as these three countries all need to strengthen their national energy strategies and focus attention on energy security. This thesis will also look at the sensitivity and vulnerability of these triangular oil relations by analyzing each bilateral conflicts and cooperation, and at the concerns arising from this in a Strategic Triangle Theory framework. The main goal is to understand the trilateral oil interactions between China, Venezuela, and the United States and better minimize the conflicts and tensions between them.