Conflict, cooperation or competition in the Caspian Sea region:A critical review of the New Great Game paradigm

This article critically reviews the New Great Game image of the Caspian Sea region and the assumptions, concepts, and mechanisms (revolving around actors, aims, and motivations) this image is based on. More specifically, this review essay answers the following questions: How does the academic literature interpret the impact of competition between great powers on social, political and economic developments in the Caspian Sea region? Which actors are presented as the dominant players? The essay also introduces the existing criticism of the New Great Game concept and alternatives to it that have already been put forward. By identifying the gaps and limits of existing scholarship, this article offers new avenues for alternative theoretical and empirical interpretations. More specifically, this article argues that the New Great Game literature promotes unsystematic and shallow discussion as it ignores and misunderstands historical, material, political, economic, and normative differences in the Caspian Sea region. Within this discussion, actors, interests, identities, social contexts, and principles are taken to be fixed, i.e. not prone to change or to any sort of adjustmen

The Resource Curse and Rentier States in the Caspian Region : A Need for Context Analysis

Although much attention is paid to the Caspian region with regard to energy issues, the domestic consequences of the region’s resource production have so far constituted a neglected field of research. A systematic survey of the latest research trends in the economic and political causalities of the resource curse and of rentier states reveals that there is a need for context analysis. In reference to this, the paper traces any shortcomings and promising approaches in the existent body of literature on the Caspian region. Following on from this, the paper then proposes a new approach; specifically, one in which any differences and similarities in the context conditions are captured. This enables a more precise exploration of the exact ways in which they form contemporary post-Soviet Caspian rentier states.Obwohl der Region am Kaspischen Meer im Zuge von Energiediskursen große Aufmerksamkeit zuteil wird, stellen die innerstaatlichen Folgen der Ressourcenproduktion in der Region ein bislang vernachlässigtes Forschungsfeld dar. Ein systematischer Überblick über die jüngsten Forschungstrends zu wirtschaftlichen und politischen Kausalzusammenhängen des Ressourcenfluchs und zu Rentierstaaten offenbart die Notwendigkeit von Kontextanalysen. Hierauf Bezug nehmend, analysiert der Aufsatz sowohl die Mängel als auch viel versprechende Ansätze in der betreffenden Literatur zur Region am Kaspischen Meer. Der Aufsatz stellt letztendlich einen neuen Ansatz vor, der Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten in den Kontextbedingungen erfasst, um zu erforschen, wie diese die gegenwärtigen post-sowjetischen Rentierstaaten in der Region am Kaspischen Meer tatsächlich prägen

Financing micro-entrepreneurs for poverty alleviation: a performance analysis of microfinance services offered by BRAC, ASA, and Proshika from Bangladesh

Microfinance services have emerged as an effective tool for financing microentrepreneurs to alleviate poverty. Since the 1970s, development theorists have considered non-governmental microfinance institutions (MFIs) as the leading practitioners of sustainable development through financing micro-entrepreneurial activities. This study evaluates the impact of micro-finance services provided by MFIs on poverty alleviation. In this vein, we examine whether microfinance services contribute to poverty alleviation, and also identify bottlenecks in micro-finance programs and operations. The results indicate that the micro-loans have a statistically significant positive impact on the poverty alleviation index and consequently improve the living standard of borrowers by increasing their level of income

Polarizing effects of globalization: political regimes that attract oil investments

textThis dissertation examines the role of political regimes in attracting foreign investments in the oil sector. Despite similar pressures from global capital, the degree of investment environment stability varies among states. Drawing on the experiences of three oil-producing countries, Azerbaijan, Norway and Russia, I argue that regime type determines the level of political competition for influence over investment policies and the institutional mechanisms that shape it. Based on the interaction of two dimensions - the number of veto players and the strength of mediating institutions - I distinguish three distinct regime types that have varying capacities in creating stable and attractive investment conditions for foreign investors. The three cases studied in this dissertation illustrate that both consolidated democracies and highly autocratic regimes are able to create stability in investment relations, while hybrid regimes, that are in between the extreme ends of autocraticdemocratic continuum, are more likely to make arbitrary and unpredictable policy changes that threaten the profitability and security of investment projects. I further argue that the procurement of foreign capital, as well as the failure to procure it, has effects on regime type. Once secured, foreign capital can reinforce both autocratic and democratic regimes or in the case of hybrid regimes can push them in either an autocratic or consolidating democratic direction. Hence, challenges of globalization polarize the options available to political elites in hybrid regimes as they try to open their economies to foreign investment.Governmen

Dedicated to my grandparents

It is impossible to give thanks to everyone who has contributed to this dissertation and my journey through graduate school. But I will try. The first person who pu

Foreign Investment, Oil Curse, and Democratization: A Comparison of Azerbaijan and Russia

The rentier-state literature pays little attention to the initial political conditions that shape the way an oil-rich country develops its resources. One of the key causal mechanisms linking oil wealth and regime type is the relationship between foreign investors and host governments. Especially in the developing countries that depend on international financing and expertise, the role of foreign capital in fashioning the balance of power in the political system and thereby the distribution of oil wealth becomes ever more important. As the experiences of Azerbaijan and Russia in the 1990s demonstrate, among oil-rich states in the developing world, those with authoritarian regimes tend to fare better in terms of attracting FDI in the oil sector than states with democratizing (or hybrid regimes). The durability of some authoritarian regimes in the developing world is partly a function of this external legitimation from foreign investors.