Structural constraints in times of resource nationalism: oil policy and state capacity in post-neoliberal Ecuador

ABSTRACT

This article explores the re-emergence of resource nationalism in Ecuador during Rafael Correa’s government. In 2010, Ecuador pursued a shift in oil contracts from production sharing agreements to service contracts. I argue that resource nationalist policies were intended to maximize rent appropriation and increase state control. Nevertheless, in order to spell out the complexities of natural resource governance in post-neoliberal Ecuador, it is important to integrate the structural constraints of the Ecuadorian state to enact resource nationalist policies. Despite the nationalist sentiments that originated these reforms, the renegotiation of contracts continued to benefit foreign corporations due to the centralized attitude of the Correa government and the perennial limitations of state capacity in the regulation of the industry.

KEYWORDS:

• Resource nationalism
• Ecuador
• service contracts
• oil industry
• foreign investment

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor of Globalizations for their detailed comments to previous drafts of this manuscript. I also thank Patrick Clark, Paul Haslam, Eric Helleiner, Kathryn Hochstetler, Alex Latta, Masaya Llavaneras Blanco and Jonas Wolff for comments and discussions of this material. I am grateful to all the sources who shared their time during my fieldwork in Quito in 2015. All errors remain my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Antulio Rosales

Antulio Rosales is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment of the University of Oslo. His research focuses on the political economy of development and resource extraction in South America. His latest work has been published in Review of International Political Economy, International Studies Quarterly and Business and Politics.