How do “Mineral-States” Learn? Path-Dependence, Networks, and Policy Change in the Development of Economic Institutions

Overcoming the Resource Curse: Reform and the Rentier State in Chile and Argentina, 1973–2000

“…However, most analyses underline the historical and path‐dependent processes of state formation that culminated in a state apparatus capable of regulating natural resources in the public interest in some countries, but not in others (Crabtree and Crabtree‐Condor, ; Kurtz, : 480–1). In this regard, states have been categorized as either capable or incapable of managing their resource wealth, but there has been little consideration of the possibility of movement from one category to another (Haber and Menaldo, : 2; Kurtz and Brooks, : 749; a notable exception is Orihuela, ). It is exactly this question that motivates this article: how and why an opportunity to appropriate and waste resource rents, once created, may deteriorate into permanent rent seeking and patronage in one case, and yet be turned around into productive developmentalism in another.…”

“…In this regard, some researchers have begun to recognize that institutional reform to overcome the resource curse needs to take into account the social foundations of institutions, including the political bargaining, pact making, and policy networks that underlie effective institutional innovation (Dietsche, : 130; Kurtz, : 483; Nem Singh and Bourgouin, : 20; Orihuela, : 141). Most of the literature on change agents in resource politics has hitherto focused on civil society actors that protest outside of normal institutional channels, with the objective of stopping individual mining projects.…”

“…Factions of the state — which were, unlike the private sector, significantly affected by the reorganization of property rights resulting from liberalization — sought rents related to the reform. In Chile, the army forced Pinochet's Chicago boys to compromise their reform objectives in mining in order to safeguard ‘strategic’ rents for the military (Nem Singh, : 337; Orihuela, : 142). In Argentina, provincial governments used liberalization as a way to convert their ownership of unrealized deposits into rent‐generating associations with multinational corporations (Interview #19).…”

“…Following the overthrow of Salvador Allende, the Pinochet government abandoned the national integration strategy and turned to a rentier strategy at the same time as it liberalized the legislation governing the sector and opened it to foreign investment. Within the government, there were divergent positions regarding the future of the nationalized mining companies, with Pinochet's technocrats favouring privatization, and the military hierarchy in favour of the status quo — not least because of a tax on copper exports that went directly to the military, until repealed in 2006 (Bande and Ffrench‐Davis, : 77; Orihuela, : 142). On ideological grounds, the Pinochet regime rejected the culture and practice of entrepreneurialism by the state, and sought to legalize these ideas (Schamis, : 73).…”

Gas and Development: Rural Territorial Dynamics in Tarija, Bolivia

“…Dietsche, 2008;Rosser, 2006) that formally "devolve" authority at the same time as promoting investment in the territory, allowing mediation among conflicting territorial projects in ways that arrive at some degree of consensus. This institutional change can also lead to new forms of democracy that lead to the emergence of policy networks that are more effective in managing a resource-dependent economy (Orihuela, 2013) and to the formulation and implementation of economic policies for local territorial development (for example, through the mechanisms of neocorporatist democracy fostered by the Ecuadorian indigenous movements analyzed by Ospina Peralta, Santillana Ortiz, and Arboleda (2008). The emergence of such territorialized institutions is not straightforward, especially in contexts where national governments might also seek to strengthen their control over the resources generated by resource extraction with a view to using them for national social and political projects.…”