Fishing in Oil: Traditional Sustenance in a Resource Economy For generations the vast majority of Arabs and Persians of the Gulf region depended on marine resources for their sustenance. They ate fish, dove for pearls, and built houses with slabs of coral mined from the ocean floor. It was a lifestyle, however meager at times, that provided freedom from regional and international rulers since flight was easy. Dwellings were permanent but simple and fish traps could be rebuild elsewhere, so interference from governments and imperial powers was not a major concern for coastal dwellers. Two twentieth century changes fundamentally altered Gulf residents’ relationship to the sea. The first was the discovery of oil. Though oil was not discovered in all regions at the same time, even the prospect of black gold altered the political, environmental, and social balance in the Gulf. The second, related, change was the further solidification of international boundaries and ongoing British efforts to establish maritime boundaries as well as terrestrial ones. These two alterations in Gulf organization undermined both traditional fisheries and the way Arabs and Persians related to the sea. My goal is to merge the political with the social by assessing the effects of diplomatic and economic changes on the fabric of Gulf lives. It will focus attention on the underbelly of the oil boom by examining how traditional methods negotiated space in a world defined by lucrative new resources and corresponding forms of political organization. Freedoms once gained by relying on mediocre fishing resources were lost as opportunities were limited by political decisions, new deep-water piers interfered with fish migration, and many men went to work on foreign-owned oil rigs rather than eke out a living from the sea. Finally, I am interested in how local residents of the Gulf coast view the sea itself now that it no longer provides their daily provisions. This paper is based on a variety of sources, including archival sources from the British Foreign Office and Reformed Church of America’s mission to the gulf, observations from scientists and British colonial figures, and, when possible, memoirs and interviews with Gulf residents. By reading across the grain of political correspondence I aim to look at the residue that oil has left in its wake.

During the oil boom period, the world oil market was under the control of OPEC and this almost omnipotent organization was generally able to determine oil prices at will. OPEC members took it for granted that oil-consuming countries should pay high prices by adding premiums and surcharges on their crude oils without any consideration of economic logic particularly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They seemed to be acting as if this tight market situation would continue for a long time and their predominant power in the world oil market would be perpetuated. In this period, Saudi Arabia tried to prevent oil prices from skyrocketing by producing its oil at maximum capacity, because the long-term economic and political interests of the Kingdom were embedded in moderate oil prices unlike other OPEC members. As David Golub and William Quandt argues, there were some exceptional cases in Saudi oil policy during political emergencies, however, Saudi Arabia generally pursued moderate oil prices by increasing production under tight market conditions. World oil market situation changed in the 1980s. Oil demand dropped and non-OPEC output increased continuously at the expense of OPEC’s market share. As the oil-consuming countries prepared for stockpiling as a useful means against a possible supply disruption or skyrocketing oil price after the 1973-74 oil embargo, they could effectively increase their bargaining power vis-à-vis OPEC members through the mechanism of stockpiling and destocking in accordance with the market situation. Furthermore, market forces began to have an increasing influence in the oil market during this period. All these changes challenged OPEC’s predominant position by undermining OPEC’s price structure and asked Saudi Arabia to have different tasks within OPEC. Previous studies regarding Saudi oil policy were basically constructed on tight market conditions without the consideration of structural changes in the world oil market during the 1980s. They failed to explain why Saudi Arabia played a swing producer role in the first half of the 1980s and gave up this role in 1985. In a slack market situation, Saudi Arabia should cut production to prevent oil prices from collapsing. Changing market situations require Saudi Arabia to modify its oil policy with different solutions. In my research, I will demonstrate how the structural changes of the world oil market in the 1980s readjusted Saudi oil policy and what were major factors for the success of Saudi oil policy by primarily using Petroleum Intelligence Weekly.

After the Nationalization of the oil industry in Iran in 1951, the government passed protectionist laws that restrain foreign ownership of Iran’s oil fields and industries. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, these laws were reinforced and further reflected the anti-Western ideological underpinnings of the revolution. Yet, after the Iran-Iraq war and the beginning of the era of so-called “reconstruction” in 1988, the Iranian government adopted several laws to encourage foreign investment, particularly in the country’s largest industry, oil and gas. These laws, particularly Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPPA), despite having been revised several times, have not been successful in encouraging foreign companies to invest in Iran’s oil and gas industries and have not fulfilled Iran’s ambition to expand country’s oil and gas industries. The recent developments in Iran’s relations with the West, especially the United States and 5+1 countries, the Iranian oil ministry announced that it will issue a new generation of oil and gas contracts that will be more attractive to the foreign investors. This paper investigates possible challenges that Iran protectionist laws may pose for these contracts particularly in light of Iran’s prevailing political and religious anti-West/anti-imperialist ideology and Iran’s distrust towards the West after the fall of Mossadegh’s government in 1953. I will also study Iran’s political and legal realities and the what they might provide foreign investors with attractive incentives such as partial or conditional ownership of the industries in which they invest.

The paper analyses the protests of the unemployed against Jordan Phosphate Mine Company (JPMC) in southern Jordan between 2011 and 2012. The JPMC is the largest actor of the Jordanian mining sector. It plays an important role in underpinning the growth of many important sectors in the economy. While, as a public-owned company it was one of the main employers of the population living nearby the phosphate mines, the company stopped hiring among them after its privatization in 2006. Based on a socio-anthropological approach, the study of the negotiations between the protesters, the JPMC managers and the state provides fruitful insights to understand the reshaping of the rulers-ruled relationships in times of privatization as well as the “Arab Spring” effect on this process. After having analysed the protesters’ claims, we show that through their demands they are actually asking for a fairer wealth redistribution based on a certain understanding of “corruption”. We then look more closely at the negotiation process that, despite the privatization, brought in a wide range of public actors – including local authorities, security forces, the Hashemite monarchy, parliament members and government members – all involved at different moments and degrees. Though the negotiations were framed as purely “economic”, we show how the rulers’ power position was performed and reasserted through the negotiation process. Finally, we discuss the reshaping of authority relations at the local level between the elders and the younger generation, the institutional and non-institutional leaders, as well as the role of the state in the process.

This paper aims at exploring the nuclear cooperation between Iran and the West in the pre-revolutionary era. The study will focus on one of the less investigated aspects of the Iranian foreign policy, namely the evolution and the political implications of Tehran’s nuclear cooperation with France and the Federal Republic of Germany. After the 1973 oil crisis and the surge in oil prices, the Shah decided to invest huge sums of petrodollars into his nuclear program. The paper will analyze the responses of Paris and Bonn to the Shah’s nuclear ambitions, and the roles played by France and the Federal Republic of Germany both in the expansion of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and the raising of a cadre of Iranian professionals and scientists. Close attention will be paid to the November 1974 agreements to purchase two 1200MWe pressurized water reactors from the German firm Kraftwerk Union and two 900 MWe reactors from the French firm Framatome, as well as the Iranian participation in the French-organized multinational consortium Eurodif (European Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment Consortium). Needless to say, the study cannot overlook the relations between Iran and the United States, and the role of Washington in shaping the relations between Western Europe and Iran as well as in regulating the global nuclear market after the shocking Indian nuclear weapon test of May 1974. This study will adopt the historical method as it will draw on American and Western European diplomatic sources, as well as personal inteviews and oral history. It will, also, make use of the analytic tools offered by other disciplines such as nuclear studies and geo-politics in order to locate the appraisal of the Iranian nuclear program in a broader analysis of the role of nuclear power in Iranian foreign policy.