First published in 1986, The Decline of Arab Oil Revenues explores the fall in the economic value of Arab oil reserves in the 1980s. Some of the threats to Arab countries include depletion of oil resources, rise of alternative sources of energy, international policies designed to control oil prices and growing conflicts of interest between producing and consuming countries. The editors suggest that any decline in oil revenues would negatively affect the economic, political, social and psychological structure of Arab societies since they are yet to explore non-oil sources of wealth. Consequently, the editors stress on the importance of researching the desert, which covers 94% of Arab lands, as a potential source of wealth. Given the current global shift towards sustainable forms of energy, this book is a timely reminder of the economic and political implications of such a shift on Arab countries for students of political science, international relations, geography, and economics.

Shaped by the emotional climate of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, the controversies between the oil-producing and oil-consuming nations are of major international concern. Shwadran outlines the progressive rise in the power of the oil-producing countries and the decline in the control exercised by the concessionary foreign countries that has culminated in the almost total nationalization of the foreign oil companies. Because of the highly charged atmosphere surrounding the issues and their grave importance on world politics, the problems are, at once, highly difficult to encompass and enormously important to understand. Through a myriad of facts and figures the author sees the underlying patterns with precision. Often narrowly viewed as having only two sides —that of oil producers and consumers—the situation is reflected in this book in all its facets. Seen in this totality of conflicting needs, desires, abilities, and objectives, the Middle East oil crisis takes on the contradictory and explosive nature which has affected us all. Middle East Oil, born of the author's years of scholarship and exposure in the field, describes the problems of the past but, more important, it gives insight into how the problem will manifest itself in the future, and provides a direction for efforts toward a final resolution. Contents: Introduction / From the Six Day War to the End of 1970 / From the Teheran 1971 Agreement to the October 1973 War / The Producers Develop the Oil Industry / The Transporters / Nationalization and Participation / The Arab Oil Embargo / The Efforts of the Consuming Countries / Surpluses and Recycling / Solutions / Bibliography

The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil, which started mid-2014, had major repercussions across the Middle East for net oil exporters, as well as importers closely connected to the oil-producing countries from the Gulf. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century – one that has continued to impose constraints, but also provided opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The studies reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period but were incapable of repelling burdensome adjustment policies, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to fulfil the expectation that they could benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection signifies that rentierism still prevails with regard to both empirical dynamics in the Middle East and academic discussions on its political economy.

Essays on economic implications and political aspects of Arab petroleum for Arab country and international economic relations - examines OAPEC pricing policies, production, industrialization, political development and cultural change with case studies of Saudi Arabia and North Africa; discusses trade policies, capital flows, surplus capital resources and global energy needs; considers USA and USSR foreign policy towards Middle East oil and the Arab-Israeli conflict. References, statistical tables.