The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2020, is one of the most recognizable acronyms in international politics. The organization has undergone decades of changing importance, from political irrelevance to the spotlight of world attention and back; and from economic boom for its members to deep political and financial crisis. This handbook, with chapters provided by scholars and analysts from different backgrounds and specializations, discusses and analyzes the history and development of OPEC, its global importance, and the role it has played, and still plays, in the global energy market. Part I focuses on the relationship between OPEC and its member states. Part II examines the relationship between OPEC and its customers, the consuming countries and their governments, while Part III addresses the relationship between OPEC and its competitors and potential partners, the non-OPEC producers, and the international oil companies. The final section, Part IV, looks at OPEC and the governance of international energy.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2020, is one of the most recognizable acronyms in international politics. The organization has undergone decades of changing importance, from political irrelevance to the spotlight of world attention and back; and from economic boom for its members to deep political and financial crisis. This handbook, with chapters provided by scholars and analysts from different backgrounds and specializations, discusses and analyzes the history and development of OPEC, its global importance, and the role it has played, and still plays, in the global energy market. Part I focuses on the relationship between OPEC and its member states. Part II examines the relationship between OPEC and its customers, the consuming countries and their governments, while Part III addresses the relationship between OPEC and its competitors and potential partners, the non-OPEC producers, and the international oil companies. The final section, Part IV, looks at OPEC and the governance of international energy.

The oil price collapse of 1985-6 had momentous global consequences: non-fossil energy sources quickly became uncompetitive, the previous talk of an OPEC 'imperium' was turned upside-down, the Soviet Union lost a large portion of its external revenues, and many Third World producers saw their foreign debts peak. Compared to the much-debated 1973 `oil shock', the `countershock' has not received the same degree of attention, even though its legacy has shaped the present-day energy scenario. This volume is the first to put the oil `counter-shock' of the mid-1980s into historical perspective. Featuring some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field, Counter-Shock offers a balanced approach between the global picture and local study cases. In particular, it highlights the crucial interaction between the oil counter-shock and the political `counterrevolution' against state intervention in economic management, put forward by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the same period.

The 1973 'Oil Shock' is considered a turning point in the history of the twentieth century. At the time it seemed to mark a definitive shift from the era of low priced oil to the era of expensive oil. For most Western industrialized countries, it became the symbolic marker of the end of an era. For many oil producers, it translated into an unprecedented control over their energy resources, and completed the process of decolonization, leading to a profound redefinition of international relations. This book provides an analysis of the crisis and its global political and economic impact. It features contributions from a range of perspectives and approaches, including political, economic, environmental, international and social history. The authors examine the origins of what was defined as an 'oil revolution' by the oil-producing countries, as well as the far-reaching effects of the 'shock' on the Cold War and decolonization, on international energy markets and the global economy. In doing so, they help place the event in its historical context as a key moment in the transformation of the international economy and of North-South relations.

The 1973 'Oil Shock' is considered a turning point in the history of the twentieth century. At the time it seemed to mark a definitive shift from the era of low priced oil to the era of expensive oil. For most Western industrialized countries, it became the symbolic marker of the end of an era. For many oil producers, it translated into an unprecedented control over their energy resources, and completed the process of decolonization, leading to a profound redefinition of international relations.This book provides an analysis of the crisis and its global political and economic impact. It features contributions from a range of perspectives and approaches, including political, economic, environmental, international and social history. The authors examine the origins of what was defined as an 'oil revolution' by the oil-producing countries, as well as the far-reaching effects of the 'shock' on the Cold War and decolonization, on international energy markets and the global economy. In doing so, they help place the event in its historical context as a key moment in the transformation of the international economy and of North-South relations.

The oil price collapse of 1985-6 had momentous global consequences: non-fossil energy sources quickly became uncompetitive, the previous talk of an OPEC 'imperium' was turned upside-down, the Soviet Union lost a large portion of its external revenues, and many Third World producers saw their foreign debts peak. Compared to the much-debated 1973 `oil shock', the `countershock' has not received the same degree of attention, even though its legacy has shaped the present-day energy scenario. This volume is the first to put the oil `counter-shock' of the mid-1980s into historical perspective. Featuring some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field, Counter-Shock offers a balanced approach between the global picture and local study cases. In particular, it highlights the crucial interaction between the oil counter-shock and the political `counterrevolution' against state intervention in economic management, put forward by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the same period.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is one of the most recognizable acronyms among international organizations. It is mainly associated with the 'oil shock' of 1973 when prices of petroleum quadrupled and industrialized countries and consumers were forced to face the limits of their development model. This is the first history of OPEC and of its members written by a professional historian. It carries the reader from the formation of the first petrostate in the world, Venezuela in the late 1920s, to the global ascent of petrostates and OPEC during the 1970s, to their crisis in the late-1980s and early- 1990s. Formed in 1960, OPEC was the first international organization of the Global South. It was perceived as acting as the economic 'spearhead' of the Global South and acquired a role that went far beyond the realm of oil politics. Petrostates such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran were (and continue to be) key regional actors, and their enduring cooperation, defying wide political and cultural differences and even wars, speaks to the centrality of natural resources in the history of the twentieth century, and to the underlying conflict between producers and consumers of these natural resources.