POLI 341 Lecture Notes - Class Conflict, Arab League, Economic Integration
20 Sep 2013
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Oil was a factor to some degree in western interests, mostly for britain. Oil production doesn"t become a major player until the late 50"s. Saudi arabia and iran as highest producers: both have different political and policy interests though. Established in 1960 with just 5 founding members (still the big producers we still now iran, iraq, kuwait, saudi arabia, venezuela: not a regional organization; not isolated to middle east. Why did these states have incentive for creating opec at this time: served as an economic cartel, seek sovereignty over resources and moderate production & prices, most of production before this had been regulated by external actors. 7 sisters 7 major oil producers (gulf, texaco, shell, esso, etc) Dominated by middle east and arab states with a global. Now includes: algeria, libya, qatar, uae, ecuador influence: the largest oil capacity (65%) are still within the middle east, middle east production is less than its capacity.
