This paper studies the oil-violence link in the Niger Delta, systematically taking into consideration domestic and international contextual factors. The case study, which focuses on explaining the increase in violence since the second half of the 1990s, confirms the differentiated interplay of resource-specific and non-resource-specific causal factors. With regard to the key contextual conditions responsible for violence, the results underline the basic relevance of cultural cleavages and political-institutional and socioeconomic weakness that existed even before the beginning of the "oil era." Oil has indirectly boosted the risk of violent conflicts through a further distortion of the national economy. Moreover, the transition to democratic rule in 1999 decisively increased the opportunities for violent struggle, in a twofold manner: firstly, through the easing of political repression and, secondly, through the spread of armed youth groups, which have been fostered by corrupt politicians. These incidents imply that violence in the Niger Delta is increasingly driven by the autonomous dynamics of an economy of violence: the involvement of security forces, politicians and (international) businessmen in illegal oil theft helps to explain the perpetuation of the violent conflicts at a low level of intensity.

How do natural resources and ethnic identity interact to incite or to mitigate social conflict? This article argues that high-value natural resources can act as an important catalyst for the politicization of ethnic, specifically indigenous identity, and contribute to social conflict as they limit the malleability of identity frames and raise the stakes of confrontations. We test this argument using unique sub-national data from Bolivian provinces. Drawing on Bolivian newspaper reports, we code conflict events for all of the 112 provinces from 2000 to 2011. We join this conflict data with information on local ethnic composition from the census, the political representation of ethnic groups at the national level, as well as geo-spatial information on gas deposits. Using time-series cross-sectional count models, we show a significant conflict-promoting effect of the share of indigenous people in provinces with gas reserves, but not without.

Causal mechanisms and related contextual variables are crucial to the study of the resource-conflict link, but little systematic research has been done on their exact functioning. This paper contributes to the filling of this gap by comparing four major oil exporters (Algeria, Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela) with differing levels of internal violence. To capture the causal complexity of the resource-conflict link we created a questionnaire with some 150 variables that distinguish between resource-specific (RS) and non-resource specific (NRS) conditions. The causal mechanisms are measured by assigning pertinent RS and NRS indicators to them. Our results suggest that the role of resources may be less prominent than is widely assumed. Only three resource-related causal mechanisms provide limited explanatory value (motive at subnational level, indirect economic, and institutional mechanism) by distinguishing Venezuela-the most peaceful case-from all the others. Only a mixed mechanism that combines 13 RS and NRS (economic and geographic characteristics, identity, intergroup relations, as well as political and institutional variables, including elite behavior) conditions can explain the differences between the countries with regard to the dependent variable comprehensively.

This article employs an innovative methodology to study causal mechanisms in the oil-conflict link by combining a systematic approach with taking into account country details. Engaging in a deductive test of causal mechanisms in a controlled comparison of four major oil exporters, results show that no oil-related causal mechanism can fully explain the differences in violence. A more inductive analysis complemented by process tracing suggests a more comprehensive mechanism: oil contributes to the formation of opposition through grievances. Levels of violence, however, vary largely according to non-oil conditions -particularly the cohesiveness of opposition and the reaction of government to challengers.

Contrary to the presumption of the resource curse hypothesis, the oil exporter Venezuela has long been one of the most stable and conflict‐free countries in Latin America. The article analyzes this deviant case by employing a context‐sensitive approach which shows that the link between oil and internal conflicts or stability cannot be understood without considering crucial resource‐specific and non‐resource‐specific contextual conditions. The findings of this in‐depth case study suggest that the interplay of the relatively high oil abundance per capita, the geographical location of the oil reserves, multidimensional redistribution policies, specific political–institutional settings, and behavioral patterns of political elites best explains the generally low level of violent conflicts in Venezuela. These findings are further confirmed by a diachronic comparative analysis undertaken in the second part of this article. It is demonstrated that temporary increases in low‐level violence can be explained by historical shifts relating to several of the outlined conditions. Contrario a la hipótesis de una maldición de los recursos naturales, la Venezuela exportadora de petróleo ha sido por mucho tiempo uno de los países más estables y libre de conflictos en América Latina. El artículo analiza este caso empleando un enfoque sensible al contexto, haciendo evidente que la relación entre el petróleo y los conflictos internos o la estabilidad no puede ser comprendida sin considerar condiciones cruciales en contextos dependientes e independientes de los recursos. Los hallazgos de este estudio exhaustivo sugieren que la interacción de una abundancia de petróleo per cápita relativamente alta, la ubicación geográfica de las reservas petroleras, políticas de redistribución multidimensional, una configuración político‐institucional específica y patrones de comportamiento de la élite política explican de una mejor manera los bajos niveles de conflictos violentos en Venezuela. Estos hallazgos son a su vez confirmados por un análisis comparativo diacrónico, realizado en la segunda parte de este artículo. Es demostrado que aumentos temporales en bajos niveles de violencia pueden ser explicados por cambios históricos relacionados con las condiciones previamente mencionadas.