On 18 March 1938 Mexican labour problems in the oil industry culminated in Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas' decision to expropriate the holdings of 17 American, Dutch and British oil companies.1 The purpose of this thesis is to fill the gaps in the literature on the Mexican oil nationalisation by analyzing the policies of the oil companies, and comparing and analyzing in detail how policy was determined in both Britain and the United States at a time when Britain was trying to win US cooperation in the face of increasing hostilities in Europe and the Far East. While Whitehall wanted US cooperation in taking a firm stance against Mexico, Washington refused. Washington's failure to cooperate with London is consistent with its resentment of Britain's still extensive trade relations with several South American countries and its attempts to form preferential trade agreements at the Ottawa conference of 1932 and subsequently an exclusive sterling bloc. Also, Washington's pursuit of the Good Neighbor policy precluded any association with 1 The companies included Mexican Eagle, which was managed and partly owned by the British and Dutch Royal/Dutch Shell, as well as subsidiaries of the American companies Standard Oil of California, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Sinclair Oil. the tough policy adopted by Britain. Despite its refusal to be associated with Britain on this matter, Washington ended up taking a hard line towards Mexico, but American officials went to great lengths to make policy appear consistent with the Good Neighbor policy. Totally reliant on overseas oil at a time when war seemed imminent, policy-makers in Britain immediately decided to prevent other countries from following Mexico's example by showing Mexico's policy to be a failure. Officials in Whitehall responsible for oil policy believed that secure access to foreign oil necessitated British ownership and control of oil supplies abroad whenever possible. Not only did Whitehall's concern about oil supplies in war focus policymakers, but the governmental machinery for formation of oil policy allowed for a consistent policy towards Mexico. Washington on the other hand lacked such machinery, and American officials displayed inconsistency in their policy toward Mexico. Also, the United States had plentiful indigenous supplies of oil, and Washington's main concern, to the disappointment of Whitehall, was increased trade with Mexico and other nations, rather than defending the more specific interests of the oil companies whose properties had been expropriated in Mexico.

The “Policy Framework for Iraq’s Petroleum Industry” is a logical structure that establishes the rules to guide decisions and manage processes to achieve economically efficient outcomes within the energy sector. It divides policy applications between regulatory and regulated practices, and defines the governance of the public sector across the petroleum industry and relevant energy portfolios. In many “Rentier States” where countries depend on a single source of income such as oil revenues, overlapping powers of authority within the public sector between policy makers and operators has led to significant conflicts of interest that have resulted in the mismanagement of resources and revenues, corruption, failed strategies and the ultimate failure of the system. Some countries have succeeded in identifying areas for progressive reform, whilst others failed due to various reasons discussed in this thesis. Iraq fits into the category of a country that has failed to implement reform and has become a classic case of a rentier state. The primary aim of this research is to produce a policy framework applicable to the local settings of Iraq’s petroleum industry, together with an implementation strategy that helps the country in its transition from legacy practices to sustainable policies compatible with the federal constitution of 2005. Such a framework would observe the legislative applications that appeared in the aftermath of establishing a federal regime. The framework will help to rationalise the decisions and processes that sustain the governance and business practices across the energy value chain of Iraq. The development of a policy framework exemplified by the final setting of the Federal Energy Council (FEC) proposed in this thesis has to take into account the existing legal framework, the legacy of previous policies and the governance arrangements of developing policy under a new federal regime. A review of federal models of major resource holders that may share similar attributes to Iraq is subsequently necessary to identify the appropriate fiscal regime which fits Iraq’s legal system. Conflicts of interest and how they have been reduced or eliminated in case study countries, must be identified to instruct the final proposed framework. This research also examines key factors that influence the petroleum sector of a federalized major resource holder. Furthermore, qualitative in-depth case studies have been conducted to investigate the research problem. This research is complemented by numerous interviews that took place with high profile executives, policy makers and senior officials, as well as a review of data relevant to Iraq from an array of historical literature. The findings of this thesis will comprise a proposed “policy framework for Iraq’s petroleum industry,” exemplified by the FEC that the federal government of Iraq needs to adopt to transition energy institutions from the legacy of centralised rule to a modern and efficient petroleum industry in a democratic setting.

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This thesis uses a staples-based political economy approach, supplemented with regulation theory, to investigate why Canadian governments pursued interventionist or non-interventionist approaches to oil export policies over the years 1949-2002. Three distinct paradigms over this time period are identified and examined at multiple levels of analysis, with a focus on power relations as causal factors. Structural biases of the Canadian economy, namely staples dependence and continentalism, combined with entrenched political cleavages of national identity and federalism to influence the success or failure of paradigms of oil export policy. External crises and power shifts precipitated the creation and destruction of these paradigms. In between these transformations, hegemonies formed based upon social, political, and economic arrangements that mutually supported the negotiation of major structural cleavages. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the role of labour as a catalyst for the development of a new interventionist, anti-continentalist paradigm in oil policy.

The aim of this thesis is to explain and analyse Britain's policy with regard to oil and the control of oil sources in the Middle East during the period 1919 to 1932. A great many books, articles, and some theses have been written on Middle Eastern oil, dealing with various aspects of the subject, but none has specifically aimed to explain in detail British oil policy between 1919 and 1932. The nearest approach to it is probably to be found in B. Shwadran's "The Middle East, Oil and the Great Powers" (New York, 1955), which was written, however, from an American point of view, and without access to British Government archives. It is hoped, therefore, that this present work may help to fill this gap and, also, that it may help to dispel the many inaccurate (and often wildly fanciful) notions about Britain's Middle Eastern oil policy which have long been current. The term "Middle East" in this context includes Persia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt, but most attention has been given to Iraq, since it was on Iraq that the main international oil controversies of the period centred. The Persian oil situation has been discussed in some detail, but no attempt at an exhaustive account has been made, since there is already a great deal of well-informed literature written on the subject. It has been found necessary to restrict the scope of the thesis to the main theme of British oil policy, avoiding any detailed treatment of the wider issues with which British oil policy was interwoven. Thus the purely diplomatic aspects of the many issues with which the oil questions were involved are not covered in any detail. In particular, no systematic attempt has been made to place Britain's oil policy in the context of its foreign policy as a whole, either in the Middle East or elsewhere, nor has any attempt been made to examine in full the oil policies (or general strategies in the Middle East) of countries other than Britain. There are several reasons for these limitations of scope. Firstly, the practical reason that, for reasons of space, no single thesis could deal adequately with all the diplomatic and other issues which were connected with British oil policy during the period under consideration. Secondly, adequate treatment of these peripheral issues would necessitate a full programme of research into the archives of the several different countries concerned, in particular those of the French Government and of the United States Government. Apart from the fact that such a programme of work would hardly be practicable in the time available, there is the added consideration that, in particular, French Government archives for the period are still closed. Of relevance to this aspect of the matter, too, is the fact that published works which might be expected to yield much information on, for example, French Middle Eastern oil policy, simply do not contain sufficient relevant information to fill satisfactorily the gap left by the non-availability of French Government archives. A third reason for restricting the scope of the thesis is the need for lucidity. In order to keep what is itself a highly complicated theme reasonably clear, much pruning of materials not absolutely central to the main theme has had to be done, sometimes with the result that issues of great importance in themselves, but having only an indirect link with the central theme, have been given only scant treatment.

This thesis aims to analyze oil as a security challenge for the European Union. The energy security policy is getting more and more important with the decrease of energy sources, which holds and shapes the balance of power in the world. Especially in the future, energy sources will be the key to political strategies. The European nations have created energy security policies in order to protect their benefits. The central argument of this thesis is that although the EU has attempted to create a common EU energy policy throughout its history, it could not escape from the impact of the national energy policy of the member states. The main focus is on the oil policy of the community. Thus, the aim of the thesis is to explore the policies created for oil security, especially in the Middle East, and why the EU could not implement these policies it created.

The literature focusing on the resource-curse commonly characterize oil-rich economies as weak and fragile. These literatures encourage diversification 'away' from oil in order to develop the economies, however, they often overlook the path for development. In contrast to this broad aim, this research bids to develop the economy 'based on' oil using Saudi Arabia as case study that can be valuable to similar resource-rich economies. The research seeks to understand how public policymaking can be used as a path to sustainable economy. It employs concepts of economic theory to design an optimal oil depletion policy framework that normatively geared towards achieving sustainable economic outcome. Sustainable economy is that simply beyond what often gauged by the GDP, an economy that is focused on long-term value creation that can shield the country against market upsets. The policy framework is grounded on economic sustainability, political economy, and the role of institutions and policymaking in managing resource-rich economies. As a result, the methodology under Normative Policy Analysis Framework was devised to outline the oil depletion policy model which will also be practically useful to propose, develop, and analyze other normative policies. The methodology also helped in identifying the specific parameters influencing the oil depletion policy in Saudi Arabia and conceivably in other oil-rich economies. As the sustainable economic welfare is, by definition, at the heart of policymaking, government intervention through effective policymaking and strong institutions plays an active role in managing market distortions, promote socioeconomic welfare, and achieve sustainability. Saudi Arabia should employ the optimal oil depletion policy to steer the economy through the sustainable path by leveraging on its national comparative advantage underpinned by resource endowment. The research also revealed that, Saudi Arabia should optimally balance between endogenous and exogenous variables in crafting its oil policy. This should lead the path to economic diversification and enable the country to wean itself from oil-dependence, disengage from in rent-seeking activities, and shift to long-term sustainable development objectives implied by development-led depletion model.

自1978年中國改革開放30年以來，隨著經濟的持續快速發展，中國對石油需求度與日俱增，自1993年起從石油淨出口國變成了石油淨進口國，尤其以2004年中國的石油進口量超過日本成為僅次於美國的全球第二大能源消費國，石油是中國經濟及工業的命脈，對國內經濟發展更具有重要的意義。國際經濟強國將石油安全列為外交工作的重點，透過石油外交途逕取得在國際石油能源資源配置中的經濟和政治利益及主導地位，以滿足國內工業需求並提高經濟增長。對中國石油需求量急劇增加下，加上國際政治經濟形勢的錯綜複雜，更加重了中國對石油進口穩定供給的需求，為確保石油能源安全，中國更加積極地實施能源進口多元化戰略，除了從中東、東南亞、中亞、俄羅斯等地進口石油外，非洲的石油儲量豐富也成了中國石油開發新地區，非洲產油國蘇丹更是中國石油外交「走出去」的典範，本文從中國、蘇丹的石油、外交、政策探討中國的石油外交走向。 / Since 1978, 30 years since China's reform and opening up, with sustained and rapid economic development, China's oil demand was increasing since 1993 from a net oil exporter into a net importer of oil, particularly in 2004, China's oil imports after the United States surpassed Japan to become the world's second largest energy consumer, and industrial oil is the lifeblood of the modern economy, China's economic development is more important. Regarded the world's largest economy oil energy as the focus of diplomatic work and hope to obtain through oil diplomacy in the international oil and energy resources in the economic and political interests and dominant position in order to meet domestic industrial demand and increase economic growth. Since the execution of reformation in 1978,Chinas economy has been soaring and so has its demand of oil.IN 1993,China changed from a net oil exporter to a net importer of oil.particularly in 2004,China imported oil more than japan so china which is after America has already become the second largest energy resources consumer in the world.Oil is the lifeblood of industries and modern economy and it has more important meaning for the economic development of China.Strong countries in the world consider oil energy as a key of diplomatic work.They hope t could dominant the main position and get economic and political benefits of international oil resources through oil diplomacy for satisfying the demand of domestic industries and increasing economic growth.

中國大陸隨著經濟快速發展，石油能源需求成長迅速，導致石油進口依賴增加，石油需求量日益大於國內原油產量，對進口原油的依賴成為中國國家安全的潛在威脅。為鞏固石油安全，除需不斷向外擴張石油的來源管道外，更需儘速調整國內能源消費結構，提昇能源使用效率。本文以石油安全的政治經濟途徑來看中國對外石油政策，探討影響中國石油安全的因素。分析究竟是「由外而內」(outside-in)，還是「由內而外」(inside-out)層面的因素制約了中國對外石油政策的走向。本文認為，依賴國外石油供應本身並不會造成中國石油安全的威脅，主要的威脅來自於對日益增長的能源消費缺乏明顯改善能源效率的機制。長期而言，改善國內能源治理才是一種有效的而且是徹底改善中國能源安全處境的根本途徑。基於這種觀點，中國必須更廣泛的，儘可能的善加利用各種國際資源，來提升國內能源使用效率。從戰略層次來看，其他各國也會受益於中國的努力。 / Mainland China's rapid economic development has brought rapid growth in oil energy demand, that has outstripped domestic sources of supply, causing increased reliance on oil imports. China's reliance on oil imports to satisfy its oil requirements has become the potential threat to the national security. In order to secure its oil security, mainland China need to constantly expand external oil energy sources. Besides, there is even greater need to speedily adjust the domestic energy consumption structure and utilising energy efficiently within china. This paper focuses on the Chinese foreign oil policy based on the political-economic approaches to oil security. The research problem of this paper is : What's the real factor that "constraint" Chinese foreign oil policy, "outside-in" or "inside-out"? The conclusion of this paper is that dependence on foreign sources of oil supply is not in itself a threat to China's oil security; the key threat is ever-growing consumption without significant improvement in erergy efficiency. In the long term, improved domestic energy governance is one effective and indeed essential route for China to improve its overall energy situation. In this concection, China must work to make as extensive use of international resources as possible for the sake of promoting more efficient use of energy in the country. At a strategic level, the rest of the world stands to benefit from progress in Chinese efforts.