What are the causes of state weakness? How best can the international community help weak states move forward? This research from the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE) argues that the ranking of states in terms of weakness has little value. Furthermore, the political problems that come with natural resources are more complicated than it might appear. In the case of Angola, developmental change is unlikely as long as powerful and poorly-regulated offshore incentives continue to shape elite motivations.
In Angola, external players helped fuel four decades of war and economic upheaval. Yet it was internal actors, including a stronger army and consolidated political control, that brought that terrible period to an end. Angola’s state and governance are therefore a complex amalgam of the weak and the strong, the domestic and the foreign. Today, Angola’s politics remain entwined with powerful outside actors and are still politics of limited access to assets and privileges. State and party elites pursue their interests on the basis of understandings with foreign extractive and banking corporations and with foreign governments, not least for assurances of military protection.
The combined impact of violent conflicts, rising revenues and the massive political influence of the oil industry in Western democracies has made oil decisive in Angola’s political economy. Oil dependence is commonly thought to make states unstable. But the Angolan case offers no clear confirmation of this hypothesis; on the contrary it is consistent with statistical studies indicating that oil wealth tends to prolong and stabilise autocratic regimes.
- In terms of coercive power over national territory, Angola’s state is now more resilient than fragile. The political game may be played in part by nontransparent, arbitrary and personalised rules, but there is at present no alternative vision.
- In terms of control over economic life, the state shows resilience in a number of key respects, although abundant petrodollars may mask structural weaknesses.
- Its agents effectively supervise the allocation of property and sources of rents, capital inflows and outflows, money supply and inflation.
- For a variety of economic, political and military purposes, the leadership has built up a large, competent state holding company with a number of ‘shadow state’ functions.
Angola’s elites harbour social and economic ambitions but, at present, Angola is not a developmental state pursing a socially inclusive agenda. It is narrowly geared to satisfying the lifestyle preferences of elites. Angola’s case can be understood in light of the commanding influence the hydrocarbon industry holds over the political classes in many Western democracies, especially the United States.
- The hydrocarbon industry finances political parties, fields thousands of lobbyists and shapes public debate through the media and think tanks in western countries.
- Hydrocarbon-exporting dictatorships make their presence felt in spending power and in regiments of public relations operatives.
- Western politicians pay close attention to the wishes of those autocracies, sometimes blocking probes into their corrupting influence in Western public life.
- Oil industry power affects geopolitics via national governments, but also via the scaffolds of global governance. The industry codifies and enforces international financial and legal mechanisms matching corporate requirements.
- Among crucial mechanisms are offshore financial centres that shield oil revenues and personal wealth from taxation.
- Western governments have regularly promoted oil interests through covert action or open invasions.
NB: A Portuguese-language version of the same article is available on the FRIDE website.
