Iranian oil revenues saw extraordinary growth in the 1970s, increasing from $1.2 billion in 1970–71 to $5 billion in 1973–74, and reaching $20 billion in 1975–76. These increased revenues gave the shah status as a major player in the Global South. It allowed him to invest in industrial projects in Africa and purchase not only raw materials to satisfy Iran’s construction boom, but also strategic resources such as uranium and phosphates. Surprisingly little has been written in the historiography of late Pahlavi Iran about how and to what effect Iran used its oil wealth to buy influence in the Global South in the 1970s. This chapter addresses this shortcoming, by examining Iranian aid and development in Africa during this period. Using a wide range of archival material and building on the important scholarship of academics such as Shireen T. Hunter, it looks at exactly how much money was distributed, the types of projects Iran supported, what Iran sought to gain from this investment/philanthropy, and how successful it actually was.

The great discoveries of the past two and a half centuries – the steam engine, electromagnetic induction, the electric power grid, the internal combustion engine, the transistor, personal computers, the internet – change not just the way we live, but an entire global economy. Nothing, however, created more change or made more millionaires than one discovery. By the early 1900s, the iron carriage had made its appearance on the streets of our booming cities, but a new kind of engine and a new kind of fuel would be needed to make a “gasmobile” run. Oil.

Despite the many advances, however, since the start of the petroleum era, ecosystems are failing because of increased industrialization, combustion pollution, and greenhouse gases. Are we seeing the beginning of the end, the twilight of our most gleaming idol? Is the next great global energy transition being forced upon us? In the words of Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi oil minister from 1962 to 1986, “the Stone Age did not end for lack of stone and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” Alas, short-term profits and share price is still being valued over environmental degradation and global warming.

The Cold War, oil, and new borders intensified the fight for hegemony in the Middle East. The shah maneuvered around thorny international issues by keeping intact his ties to different US administrations. Iran watched the Vietnam War with concern but maintained a balanced stance. Elsewhere, the creation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) brought some regional cooperation. However, in the Persian Gulf, Iran became isolated and faced competition from the Arabian Peninsula and the newly Arab states of the south. Its conflict with Iraq escalated until a short-lived truce was concluded in 1975. Iran also flexed its muscles by supporting the Sultanate in Oman during the conflict in Dhofar, but the shah’s interventions only fueled the domestic unrest against his rule. Student groups and artists increasingly decried the shah’s dictatorial ways.

In the late 1950s, the oil oligopoly reached the apex of their dominance over the global oil economy. Yet rising petro-nationalism in the oil-producing Global South threatened to destabilize the concessionary system erected to balance prices and distribute profits. Following cuts to the price of oil in 1960, the producing states formed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to pressure the companies into offering better terms. Iran occupied a middle position, as the shah hoped to use OPEC to further his own interests while maintaining close ties to the companies. His government was pulled in two directions, with OPEC Secretary General Fu’ad Ruhani pushing for more assertive petro-nationalism while conservatives in the shah’s cabinet urged a closer relationship with the companies. In the end, the shah opted to sabotage OPEC and conclude his own arrangement with the companies, one that would ensure Iran’s rising revenues and a firm financial foundation upon which to build a more powerful central state.

Mexico’s 1982 announcement that it would be unable to make its debt payment set off Latin America’s “Lost Decade.” All over the region, economies stagnated and millions of people suffered. The international response, spearheaded by the United States, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, initiated market reforms that would cut state spending, privatize state-run industries, dismantle tariffs, and construct free trade agreements. The neoliberal era had been launched. The reforms and trade agreements that accompanied this new era reflected continued U.S. hegemony but also the ways in which economic power was supplanting military power. Latin America initially found few alternatives to the neoliberal model. At the end of the twentieth century Latin American economies were growing once again, but in many cases they were only returning to where they had been before the crash. With millions feeling economic pain, neopopulist leaders gained momentum. Commitment to free trade agreements also waned as leaders like Donald Trump questioned their benefits. This chapter explores the region’s political economy of the last 50 years.

This chapter examines three main forms of proto-centralisation in energy governance, namely producer/consumer organisations by reference to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Energy Forum (IEF) and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF); promotion organisations, by reference to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA); and regional organisations, by reference to the EU Energy Union, the Latin American Organization on Energy Cooperation (OLADE) and the ASEAN Energy Cooperation framework.

Trump’s America First Energy Plan, which focuses on oil and gas expansion and rolling back regulations, promised to insulate the US economy from the volatile global oil market. In reality, the US shale oil industry, operating within the global oil markets, suffered contractions when oil supplier nations’ price wars caused global oil prices to crash. While the plan promised to bring Americans jobs and prosperity, predicating economic development on oil and gas extraction is a dubious strategy for several reasons. The shale industry, which contributed to the recent boom and expected future production, suffers from a shaky financial foundation. Even prior to COVID-19, traditional investors had begun cutting lending to shale companies and bankruptcies were accelerating. In March 2020, under Congress’s COVID-19 financial rescue package, the Trump administration executed a bailout for the oil and gas industry that shifted financial losses to American taxpayers without securing companies’ agreements to keep workers employed. The bailout replicates the decades-long economic model of the industry, which privatizes profits to the companies, while socializing the costs from the industry, through tax preferences and subsidies for the industry and through various laws that favor extraction over those that suffer from the industry’s adverse impacts.

Decentralization of the energy sector means the breaking-up of the sector and its vertically integrated enterprises and/or global cartels by separating its distinct functions (extraction, transmission and sale), thereby allowing for increased competition in the market. This chapter uses two case studies to illustrate the challenges the decentralization of largely vertically integrated energy markets poses for international trade law, including international trade law’s inability to deal comprehensively with the production quota practices of global energy cartels such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The chapter then studies regional energy market decentralization policies (in this case the European internal market), focusing on the panel report in EU – Energy Package, and considers which WTO rules facilitate such policies and which constrain them.

The present chapter begins by studying the necessary minimum preconditions, in terms of elasticities and market shares, for successful cartel action. We then identify the markets where these preconditions appear to be fulfilled. There follows an account of the attempts of commodity producers to wieldmarket power for their own benefit, trying to answer questions such as: What were the triggers to the cartel action? How did it go? How did the buyers react? What prompted cartel disintegration? There is a heavy emphasis on oil, given the extraordinary price performance of this commodity.

This chapter starts by outlying the key characteristics of oil use, including: i) The history of oil; ii) Where oil resources are currently located across the globe, also with a focus on the difference between conventional and unconventional resources; iii) Technological aspects of oil exploration, production and transport; iv) Global oil production, consumption and trade trends. It then analyses the geopolitical issues associated with oil, including: i) How changes in the locations of oil supply could affect global security; ii) How changes in the locations for oil demand could affect global security; iii) The current “chokepoints” in transporting oil supply to users, and how their risks could be addressed.

Chapter four empirically assess the veracity of the argument on why leaders nationalize their oil sectors and establish operational national oil companies (NOCs). To test hypotheses derived from the theory’s implications, this chapter presents the findings from a method of statistical analysis that combines the cross-national NOC dataset with information elicited from structured interviews with oil experts. This technique -- Bayesian statistics -- allows for a holistic analysis of the determinants of nationalization that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative evidence on NOC formation. The results show the importance of information diffusion and perceptions of leader survival in the decision to nationalize the oil sector. The chapter then offers a case comparison of Iran and Saudi Arabia in the 1940s to show how information diffusion to a strong regime led to maintaining private ownership in Saudi Arabia in 1949, while knowledge about revenue sharing diffused to a weak regime led to nationalization in Iran in 1951.