Crude Ambitions: The Internationalization of Emerging National Oil Companies

The burgeoning literature on the internationalization of emerging country NOCs asserts that the combination of technology transfer in the 1970s-80s and sustained high oil prices in the 1990s created an unprecedented opportunity in the 2000s for NOCs to internationalize their operations at a rapid pace, enabling them to compete successfully with International Oil Companies (IOCs) for dominance in global oil markets. The 2000s has indeed witnessed the expansion of emerging country NOCs' investment, exploration, production, and personnel abroad. And yet, this widespread ambition to internationalize has been realized with varying levels of success. We capture this variation by developing an original composite index that assigns NOCs a degree of internationalization score. We then provide an alternative explanation for why emerging country NOCs achieve such different levels of success. Contrary to existing explanations that emphasize structural and economic changes at the international level, we argue that an NOC's capacity to internationalize is constrained by domestic politics; more specifically, the legacy of its mode of emergence, the timing of convergence between the government and NOC management regarding the merits of internationalization, and the sequencing of sectoral reforms vis-à-vis convergence. Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security Studies.Event Web Page, photo

Central Asia and the globalisation of the contemporary legal consciousness

What is the logic which governs the processes of legal globalization? How does the transnational proliferation of legal forms operate in the contemporary geo-juridical space? What are the main defining characteristics of the currently dominant mode of transnational legal consciousness and how can the concept of legal consciousness help us understand better the historical ebb and flow of the Western-led projects of good governance promotion in regions like Central Asia after the fall of the Soviet Union? Using Duncan Kennedy’s seminal essay Three Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought as its starting platform, this essay seeks to explore these and a series of other related questions, while also drawing on the work of the Greek Marxist lawyer-philosopher Nicos Poulantzas to help elucidate some latent analytical stress-points in Kennedy’s broader theoretical framework. Reacting against the neo-Orientalist tone adopted across much of the contemporary field of Central Asian studies, it develops an alternative account of the internal history of the legal-globalizational encounter between the Western-based reform entrepreneurs and the national legal-political elites in Central Asia in the post-1991 period, complementing it with a detailed description of the general institutional and discursive structures within which this encounter took place

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

COVID-19 symptoms at hospital admission vary with age and sex: results from the ISARIC prospective multinational observational study

Background: The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms. Methods: International, prospective observational study of 60 109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruited from 43 countries between 30 January and 3 August 2020. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate relationships of age and sex to published COVID-19 case definitions and the most commonly reported symptoms. Results: ‘Typical’ symptoms of fever (69%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%) were the most commonly reported. 92% of patients experienced at least one of these. Prevalence of typical symptoms was greatest in 30- to 60-year-olds (respectively 80, 79, 69%; at least one 95%). They were reported less frequently in children (≤ 18 years: 69, 48, 23; 85%), older adults (≥ 70 years: 61, 62, 65; 90%), and women (66, 66, 64; 90%; vs. men 71, 70, 67; 93%, each P < 0.001). The most common atypical presentations under 60 years of age were nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and over 60 years was confusion. Regression models showed significant differences in symptoms with sex, age and country. Interpretation: This international collaboration has allowed us to report reliable symptom data from the largest cohort of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Adults over 60 and children admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are less likely to present with typical symptoms. Nausea and vomiting are common atypical presentations under 30 years. Confusion is a frequent atypical presentation of COVID-19 in adults over 60 years. Women are less likely to experience typical symptoms than men

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe

Prelude To The Resource Curse: Oil And Gas Development Strategies In Central Asia And Beyond

this article is to explain these empirical puzzles and, in doing so, to formulate a broader theory of the initial formation of natural resource development strategies. In short, we argue that state leaders choose energy development strategies based on the domestic constraints they face when they either discover or gain newfound authority over their energy reserves: (1) the availability of alternative sources of rents; and (2) the level of political contestation. These two domestic factors determine the amount of resources that state leaders possess in the status quo versus the costs they must continue to incur in order to satisfy their 4 supporters and pay-off their opponents. Hence, they also determine the extent to which state leaders must rely on energy sector development to retain their power. Where state leaders enjoy a high degree of access to alternative sources of rents and a low level of contestation, they have sufficient resources to reward their supporters and appease or defeat their opponents. Thus, they can afford to nationalize (or retain state ownership) and to minimize international involvement because they can delay the financial benefits accruing from oil and gas exploitation. Where state leaders have a low degree of access to alternative sources of rents and a high level of contestation, they lack sufficient resources to reward their supporters and appease or defeat their opponents. Thus, they privatize their energy sector with the direct involvement of international actors in order to reap the financial benefits from exploiting their precious reserves immediately. The article proceeds as follows. First, we assess the extent to which the existing literature is relevant for explicating our puzzle. Second, both building on and departing from this lite..