Defying the Resource Curse: Explaining Successful State-Owned Enterprises in Rentier States

Abstract

The article explains how several Gulf rentier monarchies have managed to create highly profitable and well-managed state-owned enterprises (SOEs), confounding expectations of both general SOE inefficiency and the particularly poor quality of rentier public sectors. It argues that a combination of two factors explains the outcome: the absence of a populist-mobilizational history and substantive regime autonomy in economic policy-making. The author concludes that it is necessary to rethink the commonly accepted generalizations both about rentier states and, arguably, about public sectors in the developing world.

The Politics of Governing Oil Effectively: A Comparative Study of Two New Oil-Rich States in Africa

“…Michael Watts (2004) shows how the advent of oil can transform the political imaginaries of political actors at multiple levels of the political system, including renewed belief in the possibilities of national development. For Hertog (2010), the fact that oil can inspire a form of economic populism helps explain how and why the efficient performance of public oil agencies in countries such as Algeria, Iran, Libya and Venezuela has been undermined as a result of their being forced to adopt welfarist functions.…”

Indutores de alinhamento estratégico: comparações preliminares sobre valor entre empresas de capital privado e empresas estatais no Brasil

“…A pouca ênfase na responsabilidade societária cristalizaria a noção de modelo de controle centralizado e de concentração da propriedade na economia brasileira, o que não deixaria de ser um ponto em comum com a verificação de controle estatal e inibidor de desempenho (Hertog, 2010).…”

“…Aspectos complementares sobre o desempenho das empresas estatais são discutidos por Hertog (2010), ao estudar seus resultados em países dependentes de recursos extrativistas. A partir do modelo apresentado na figura 1 (Hertog, 2010:280), propõe uma nova agenda em que não haveria, a priori, impedimentos à atuação do Estado na gestão de ativos do setor produtivo, atendidas as salvaguardas em relação ao populismo e ao controle excessivamente centralizado.…”

Tourism development in Kuwait: examining the political-economic challenges in a unique rentier economy

“…While there have been several attempts to expand international and domestic tourism in Kuwait, mostly from the private sector, the overall political and economic landscape in Kuwait has resulted in several major challenges for the future development of tourism industry. In particular, there is a lack of public-private partnerships (Hvidt, 2007) and state-owned enterprises (Hertog, 2010), which have been instrumental in the development of the tourism industry (and in particular infrastructure) in places like Dubai.…”

“…The result of the parliamentary instability has been that the majority of members of the opposition, fuelled by the public allegations of corruption and lack of transparency by the executive branch, could continue to appease popular opinion, and thus interfere with the development process including many of the urgently needed infrastructure projects. Additionally, mega development projects and economic diversification and liberalization policies have been side-tracked due to the infighting between government, parliament, the public and other bureaucratic interests groups in the uniquely democratic political system (Hertog, 2010) The private sector in Kuwait often places the blame for the economic problems in the country on the National Assembly. As one Kuwaiti economist stated, "Kuwait has adopted the worst of democracy and the worst of dictatorship-the country lives on oil revenues, which makes it a temporary country" (Herb, 2009: 381).…”