Energy Policy 39 (2011) 16691676

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol

Oil and resource-backed aggression

Jeff Colgan n
International Relations, American University, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

abstract

Article history:
Received 20 May 2010
Accepted 17 December 2010
Available online 15 January 2011

A common misperception about oil politics is that it has a uniform, monolithic effect on policy
development. This paper argues that in fact the net political effect of oil varies dramatically depending
on the nature of the petrostate. It shows that oil income, when combined with revolutionary
governments in petrostates, generates strong incentives for foreign policy aggression and international
conflict. The aggressiveness of petro-revolutionary states is shown to have consequences in both
military and economic spheres of international relations. Militarily, the aggressiveness of this type of
state leads to a high rate of armed conflicts. Economically, the aggressiveness of petro-revolutionary
states shapes global oil markets and international economic relations. The argument is tested using
statistical analysis of international conflicts and economic sanctions. The policy implications are then
considered, focusing on the negative global impacts of dependence on oil consumption.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Resource curse
International conflict
Oil wars

1. Oil and resource-backed aggression

Oil is associated with the resource curse, the symptoms of
which include poor economic growth, authoritarianism, and civil
war (Sachs and Warner, 2001; Ross, 2001, 2009; Collier and
Hoeffler, 2004; Fearon and Laitin, 2003). Traditionally, much
attention has focused on the domestic consequences of the
resource curse. This paper presents new research that suggests
that the resource curse also profoundly affects international
relations. In addition to investigating what is the resource
curse? we should ask, who else gets cursed?
A common misperception about oil politics is that it has a
uniform, monolithic effect on politics.1 This paper suggests that
that is simply not true, and that in fact the net political effect of
oil can vary dramatically depending on the nature of the petrostate. One should not look for a single, simple answer about how
oil affects international affairs; instead, one should seek to understand the conditions under which oil makes a given political
outcome more or less likely.
For instance, petrostates countries in which revenues from net
oil exports constitute at least 10% of GDP are far more frequently
involved in international conflicts than non-petrostates.2 Why are

n
Correspondence to: School of International Service, American University, 4400
Massachusetts Ave, Washington, DC 20016, United States.
E-mail address: colgan@american.edu
1
Not all academic scholars make this mistake, of course. See, e.g., Gause
(1994) and Smith (2007).
2
This definition of a petrostate follows the one used by scholars of rentierism,
e.g., Karl (1997). The empirical findings are robust to alternative definitions of
petrostate, such as a threshold of 20% of GDP.

0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.12.042

petrostates so closely associated with international conflict?

The most common answer to this question focuses on resource
competition, the idea that states are fighting over ownership or
access to the oil. This answer seems very compelling, yet it turns
out to be incomplete and even misleading. Resource competition
implies that petrostates are likely to be the targets of conquest, the
victims of military struggle over their geological resources. And
while there is some truth to this idea, petrostates are in fact far
more likely to be the instigators than the targets of international
conflict. Indeed, petrostates such as Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Sudan,
and Libya are more fully understood as aggressive actors in
international affairs than as passive targets of conquest.
This paper puts forward an alternative explanation of the
political effects of oil, based on the idea of resource-backed
aggression. Rather than having a single, uniform effect, oil has
multiple effects on the domestic politics of a petrostate, some of
which create incentives for foreign policy aggressiveness and
some of which do the opposite. For instance, oil income can be
used to finance military capabilities and campaigns, which
expands the states opportunities for aggression. On the other
hand, oil income also generates an enormous financial incentive
to avoid any international conflict that would interrupt the states
oil export sales. The net effect on a petrostates foreign policy and
its propensity for international conflict depends on how the oil
income interacts with the domestic politics of the petrostate.
A key characteristic of the petrostates domestic politics is
whether the government is revolutionary. Oil income has its most
negative consequences for international peace when it is produced
in a state that is led by a government with ambitious, risk-acceptant
preferences for revising the international status quo. Such leadership
often arises in the wake of a domestic political revolution, creating

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J. Colgan / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 16691676

petro-revolutionary governments. Revolutionary leaders in petrostates have the risk tolerance, the political autonomy, and the
military resources for belligerent foreign policy.
The aggressiveness of petro-revolutionary states has consequences in multiple areas of international relations, both military
and economic. This paper uses a broad definition of international
aggression, which includes the support of terrorism and foreign
insurrections, as well as the initiation of military disputes. Militarily,
the aggressiveness of petro-revolutionary states leads to a high rate
of armed conflicts. This subset of petrostates largely accounts for the
overall correlation noted above between petrostates and military
conflict; non-revolutionary petrostates do not instigate military
conflicts at nearly the same rate. Economically, the aggressiveness
of petro-revolutionary states shapes global oil markets and international economic relations. As this paper shows, such states are also
more likely to be targeted for economic sanctions than comparable
non-petrostates. Thus, in both military and economic spheres, the
resource curse extends beyond the oil-endowed nation, shaping
relationships between states in the international system.
This paper proceeds as follows: Section 1 presents a theory of
how oil interacts with revolutionary governments to create
aggressiveness and conflict in some petrostates but not others,
thus accounting for the variation among petrostates in international behaviors. Drawing on existing work, Section 2 summarizes
research on the relationship between oil and international military conflict (Colgan, 2010). The findings are striking: petrorevolutionary states are more than three times as likely to instigate
a militarized interstate dispute as other states are. Section 3 of
this paper describes the preliminary results from on-going
research into the relationship between oil, revolutions, and
international economic sanctions. Again, Section 4 illustrates the
aggressiveness of petro-revolutionary states toward other states.
Section 5 considers the policy implications of these findings in
light of the structural changes currently unfolding in the geopolitical conditions of petroleum production.

2. Theory of resource-backed aggression

Large-scale oil income generates multiple political incentives
that affect a petrostates foreign policy. At least four distinct
incentives can be identified. First, oil generates financial resources
that can be used to finance military capabilities and campaigns.
An increase in military capabilities expands the states set of
feasible opportunities for aggression. Second, oil income also
generates significant financial incentives to avoid any international conflict that would interrupt the states oil export sales.
Many petrostates, almost by definition, are financially dependent
on their oil exports, without which the government cannot meet
its budget and the economy is severely hurt. Third, oil income
increases a states propensity to use financial resources to achieve
foreign policy objectives, such as providing direct foreign aid for
allies, support for foreign insurgents, and funding for ideological
instruments such as religious or educational institutions.
The fourth and perhaps most subtle of the political incentives
generated by oil income is that it encourages leaders to take risks.
One of the special properties of oil income is that it is easily seized
by the central government, which gives the leader an independent source of financial resources that can be redistributed to buy
political support. A significant body of existing research illustrates
how a rentier economy can have negative political consequences
(Karl, 1997; Ross, 2001, 2009; Hertog, 2010). Consequently, a
petrostate leader often has a high degree of political autonomy,
and thus a low risk of being removed from office for risky and
potentially unpopular actions. In non-petrostates, one of the
reasons that leaders tend to avoid international conflicts is

because they know that if they lose, they are very likely to be
removed from office, either peacefully or violently. Yet a petrostate leader can use the states oil income to purchase political
support, thereby allowing him to take significant risks, including
those involved in aggressive foreign policy adventurism.
These multiple political incentives derived from oil income
operate simultaneously. The net impact of oil on a states foreign
policy depends critically on its domestic politics, especially the
preferences and capabilities of its leader. Governments that have
come to power by way of a domestic revolution are especially
significant. Revolutionary governments are more likely to have
aggressive preferences for two reasons. First, revolutionary politics
tend to select leaders that have ambitious, risk-acceptant preferences:
an individual simply does not become a successful revolutionary
without a high degree of risk-acceptance. Aggressiveness is systematically more likely where risk tolerance is high (Zagare and Kilgour,
2000; Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003). Second, revolutions tend
to eliminate domestic political constraints that might otherwise
restrain an aggressive leader from taking a state into conflict or
war. Thus in general, revolutionary states have a higher propensity
for aggression than comparable non-revolutionary states, regardless
of whether they have oil (Walt, 1997; Maoz, 1996; Skocpol, 1988;
Gurr, 1988).
These two factors oil income and revolutionary government
lie at the heart of resource-backed aggression. For states in which
a revolutionary government has taken power, oil increases the
states propensity to instigate international conflicts. The combination of a risk-taking revolutionary leader, financial resources for
military activities, and a high degree of political autonomy
generated by oil income, creates a toxic mix that facilitates state
aggression, which in turn leads to conflict. In non-revolutionary
petrostates, the net effect of oil income is quite different. Oil still
provides incentives for aggression, but these are balanced by the
incentives to avoid international conflict.
A key premise underlying this theory is that state aggression
increases the probability of international conflict. This premise is
important for understanding how the theory, which is monadic in
the sense that it focuses on the domestic politics of a single state,
explains dyadic outcomes resulting from the strategic interaction
between states, namely military conflict and economic sanctions.
Some scholars of international relations argue that if actors are
strategic and rational, they ought to be able to reach a bargain
which reflects the balance of power and therefore avoid a costly
conflict (Fearon, 1995; Powell, 1999; Filson and Werner, 2004).
Yet the domestic politics within each state influences the interactions between states (Putnam, 1988). Domestic factors (e.g., a
recent revolution) can make a state more or less demanding at the
international level by altering the perceived payoffs to victory and
defeat, the risk tolerance, and the perceived costs of fighting.
Consequently, the probability of international conflict is increased
when the domestic politics of one or both sides makes the
state(s) more demanding. Indeed, the study of international
security has moved increasingly towards investigation of the
causes of war arising from domestic-level factors (Bueno de
Mesquita et al., 2003; Goemans and Chiozza, 2004; Mansfield
and Snyder, 2005; Tomz, 2007; Gleditsch et al., 2008).
Thus under certain conditions, oil generates incentives for
international conflict. The mechanisms that produce this outcome
are related but distinct from the mechanisms that link oil to
domestic conflict. As indicated in the introduction, there is a
significant body of literature on oil and civil war, as part of the
inquiry into the resource curse (Sachs and Warner, 2001; Ross,
2001, 2009; Collier and Hoeffler, 2004; Fearon and Laitin, 2003).
In contrast to the mechanisms discussed in that literature, which
focus primarily on rebels incentives to overthrow the government, this paper focuses on how oil income changes the

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J. Colgan / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 16691676

incentives faced by government leaders in various ways, thereby

affecting patterns of international conflict.
One of the observable implications of this theory is that petrorevolutionary states ought to instigate military conflict more
frequently than other kinds of states. A second implication is that
the aggressiveness of petro-revolutionary states should make
them the targets of economic sanctions more frequently than
other kinds of states. These two empirical implications are tested
in the next two sections.

3. Oil and international military conflict

Petrostates, on average, instigate militarized international
conflicts considerably more frequently than non-petrostates.
This was not always true: until about 1970, petrostates were
just about as likely to get into international conflicts as nonpetrostates. Yet the modern age of oil, which began in earnest
after the Arab oil embargo of 1973, created a world in which
petrostates play an over-sized role in global military affairs.
Indeed, the relatively small group of petrostates has accounted
for almost a quarter of all of the worlds international conflicts
since 1970.3
The relationship between oil and militarized international
conflict is partly explained both by resource competition and
resource-backed aggression. The first step in explaining the link
between oil and international conflict is to understand the
relative importance of each explanation. If resource competition
is most prevalent, petrostates ought to be mostly the targets of
international conflict (defenders), as states fight over access or
ownership of the oil resources within the petrostate. On the other
hand, if resource-backed aggression is most prevalent, petrostates
ought to aggressively instigate conflicts.
Table 1 helps us take this first step in the analysis. It draws on
the Correlates of War (COW) data on militarized interstate
disputes (MIDs), which can be divided into two categories:
Aggressor-MIDs and Defender-MIDs, depending on the role that
the state played in the conflict.4 As the table indicates, petrostates
engage in Aggressor-MIDs at a rate 94% higher than that of nonpetrostates; for Defender-MIDs, the rate is 30% higher. Thus
petrostates have a higher rate of both Aggressor- and DefenderMIDs than non-petrostates, but the former is far more important
in driving the overall rate. Thus the evidence shows that resourcebacked aggression is the principal driver of the correlation
between petrostates and international conflict.5
Having established the importance of resource-backed aggression, the analysis can now turn to investigating the root causes of
that aggression. As articulated above, the interaction of oil with
revolutionary government is central to the explanation. A revolutionary government is one that transforms the existing social,
political, and economic relationships of the state by overthrowing
or rejecting the principal existing institutions of society. To identify
such governments for statistical analysis, the analysis uses a
dataset with a dichotomous coding for revolutionary governments
(See footnote 3). Revolutionary governments are those that have
come to power through the use of armed force, widespread
popular demonstrations, or similar uprising, and which, once in
power, implemented radical domestic changes in at least three of
3
Correlates of War database, based on Sarkees and Schafer (2000). Authors
analysis.
4
This is done using the COW coding of whether or not the state was acting as
a revisionist party in the disputethat is, the state that seeks to revise the status
quo by force. Dataset: Sarkees and Schafer (2000). Version 3.02.
5
It is possible that resource-competition was more frequent in earlier time
periods, as for instance resource-competition played a role WWII. This paper
focuses on the contemporary period since 1945.

Table 1
MIDS, aggressor-MIDS and defender-MIDS by state type, 19452001.
Data source: COW MIDS dataset v3.02. 19452001.
MID onset

Agg-MID onset

Def-MID onset

Non-petrostate
Petrostate

0.440
0.688

0.180
0.350

0.261
0.338

Petro as % of non-petro

156

194

130

Count of MID onsets per state-year, average.

All differences between petro- and non-petrostates are statistically significant.

seven areas of social, economic, and political practices.6 The dataset

contains 1076 governments/leaders, containing data for 170 countries from 1945 to 2001, for a total of 6407 state-years.7
The statistical analysis uses international conflict data over the
period 19452001. The analysis again uses the data on militarized
interstate disputes (MIDs), which is the most-widely used measure of international conflict in political science.8 The analysis
focuses on the onset of MIDs, since the factors leading to dispute
onset are not necessarily the same as those that lead to dispute
continuation or duration. The dependent variable is the count of
Aggressor-MIDS that the state instigated each year; a randomeffects Poisson regression model is used for the analysis. The
three key explanatory variables are: Revolutionary Government,
Petrostate, and the interaction term, Petro Revolution. Petrostate is
a dichotomous measure, but oil income was also measured
continuously as a robustness check. Control variables in the
analysis include: GDP per capita; population size; regime type
(Polity IV score); the number of neighboring states with contiguous borders; the Muslim percentage of the population; and a
dummy variable indicating major powers (i.e., the Permanent
5 members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany and Japan
after 1990).9 The results are presented in Table 2.
The results show significant support for the theory. States with
revolutionary governments are associated with considerably
more militarized interstate disputes than states without revolutionary governments, especially when they occur in petrostates.
Model 1 is a basic model without the new dataset on revolutionary governments, used as a baseline for comparability to
other scholarly studies. Model 2 shows the changes when the data
on revolutionary governments are added; model 3 is specified
with panel fixed effects instead of random effects.10 As expected,
the coefficient for Revolutionary Government is positive and
strongly significant. Models 4 and 5 introduce the second key
variable, Petrostate, and the interaction term Petro Revolution. As
expected, the interaction variable Petro Revolution is positive and
strongly significant, indicating that revolutionary governments in
petrostates are even more warlike than revolutionary

6
The seven areas are: the selection and power of the national executive; the
structure of property ownership; the relationship between state and religion; the
official political ideology; the official state name; the institutionalized status of
ethnicity and gender; and the presence of a governing revolutionary council or
committee.
7
Countries that do not have a Polity score are not coded. The number of
leaders reported counts leaders who have come to office at two distinct times
(with at least a year out of office) as two leaders; the number of unique leaders is
slightly smaller.
8
Dataset: Sarkees and Schafer (2000). Version 3.02. Data used by: Bueno de
Mesquita et al. (2003), Goemans and Chiozza (2004), Mansfield and Snyder (2005),
Tomz (2007), Gleditsch et al. (2008), and Weeks (2008).
9
For more details on the justification, methodology, and data sources for
these variables, see Colgan, 2010.
10
Approximately 900 observations are dropped when switching from the
random-effects models (2 and 4) to the fixed-effects models (3 and 5). The
dropped observations are ones where there is no within-country variation on the
dependent variable: i.e., states that did not engage in any MIDs during the period
of analysis.

1672

Table 2
International disputes by state type.

DV: Aggressor-MIDS

Model 1
No Revol

Revolutionary govt

Model 2
Base

Model 3
Base FE

Model 4
Petro Base

Model 5
Petro FE

0.443
0.089

0.432
0.094

0.286
0.099
! 0.433
0.158
0.707
0.203
! 0.025
0.060
0.244
0.066
! 0.010
0.007
0.112
0.022
0.135
0.078
0.182
0.287
0.330
0.413

0.289
0.104
! 0.328
0.179
0.660
0.212
0.052
0.075
! 0.070
0.137
! 0.006
0.008
0.180
0.029
0.100
0.095

No
6244
! 2747

Yes
5377
! 2344

Petrostate
Petro revolution
GDP/cap, log
Population, log
Polity IV
Contiguous borders
Cold war
Muslim, %pop.
Major power
Fixed effects
N
Log-likelihood

! 0.072
0.059
0.237
0.067
! 0.016
0.007
0.141
0.022
0.148
0.078
0.099
0.299
0.320
0.439

! 0.022
0.060
0.236
0.067
! 0.008
0.007
0.121
0.022
0.123
0.078
0.140
0.292
0.311
0.421

0.059
0.075
! 0.063
0.135
! 0.004
0.008
0.193
0.028
0.101
0.095

No
6272
! 2780

No
6244
! 2755

Yes
5377
! 2349

All models use Poisson regression analysis for time-series panel data.
Panel-adjusted standard errors are given below the coefficients; bold indicates
p o0.05.
Regional dummies and a spline of peace years included but not shown.

governments in non-petrostates. Note also that this result is

obtained even though the models include regional dummy variables, and thus controlling for variation in the amount of international conflict between regions (e.g., controlling for the high
levels of conflict within the Middle East).
Perhaps surprisingly, the coefficient on the variable Petrostate is
negative, indicating an inverse correlation between non-revolutionary petrostates and Aggressor-MIDs. This finding is statistically
significant in model 4, but not significant in model 5 once fixed
effects are introduced. Thus these results are not conclusive, but they
suggest that non-revolutionary petrostates are no more likely to
instigate MIDs than comparable non-petrostates, and possibly significantly less likely. This finding is striking because overall, the
opposite trend holds: petrostates launch more MIDs on average than
non-petrostates. The implication is that the overall above-average
rate of international disputes is driven almost entirely by the small
subset of revolutionary petrostates, which are extremely aggressive;
the rest of the non-petrostates do not instigate many MIDs. This
finding provides further support for the claim that Revolutionary
Government is an essential variable in explaining the behavior of
petrostates, and suggests that the conventional explanation for the
relationship between oil and international conflict is not satisfactory.
Fig. 1 shows the magnitude of the effect of oil and revolutionary government on the probability that a typical state
instigates a MID in a given year. For the purposes of analysis, a
typical state is created in which the control variables are set to
their mean values, and the values of Petrostate and Revolutionary
Government are assigned to create four types of states.11 The first

11
The model used for Fig. 1 is Model 4 from Table 2. In this comparison, a
typical state is considered, in which most variable are set to the average of the
data sample: the GDP per capita is $2110, population is 8.3 million, Polity score is
! 0.6, the state has 5.5 external borders, and Muslims make up 24% of the
population. Other values, such as the geographic location of the state, the Cold
War, and the states status as a major power are not averaged, meaning that they
vary according to the data within each category of Fig. 1.

Expected Agg-MIDS per year

J. Colgan / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 16691676

0.4
0.3
0.2
+46%

0.1
0

Non-Petro

Petro

Non-Revolutionary govts

+249%

Non-Petro

Petro

Revolutionary govts

Fig. 1. Effect of the Combination of Oil and Revolutionary Governments on MIDS.

Error bars are not shown, but differences between the revolutionary governments
(solid bars) and the non-revolutionary governments (striped bars) are statistically
significant, as are the differences between petro-revolutionaries and nonpetrostate revolutionaries.

type is a non-petrostate and is led by a non-revolutionary

government. As indicated by the bar on the left of Fig. 1, such a
state instigates 0.11 MIDs per year, or about one every decade.
The second type is a petrostate led by a non-revolutionary
government; Fig. 1 shows that such a state instigates 0.09 MIDs
per year. Thus non-revolutionary petrostates appear no more
aggressive than comparable non-petrostates.
The most important findings are shown in the two bars on the
right hand side of Fig. 1. As expected, non-petrostates with
revolutionary governments instigate MIDs more than comparable
states with non-revolutionary governments; they do this at a rate
of 0.16 per year, or 46% more per year than comparable state with
non-revolutionary governments. However, this difference pales in
comparison to the effect of revolutionary governments in petrostates. Such states instigate MIDs at a rate of 0.39 per year, which
is 249% higher than the rate of comparable non-petrostates.12 As
Fig. 1 makes clear, the combination of a revolutionary government and an oil-exporting economy is a toxic mix for international peace and security.
The statistical results suggest that the theory under investigation provides powerful insight into the behavior of petrostates.
Indeed, when one moves past the quantitative results and considers a broader view of foreign policy behavior, the relationship
between petro-revolutionaries and aggressive conflict becomes
even more evident. Qualitative case studies are provided elsewhere, but some brief examples can be highlighted here (See
footnote 3). Saddam Hussein seized power by force, revolutionized his countrys domestic politics, and then used his countrys
oil income to centralize power and build a powerful military
apparatus. Under his leadership, Iraq invaded both Iran (1980)
and Kuwait (1990). Moreover, Iraq engaged in a number of lowerlevel militarized disputes with other states, including the Tanker
Wars of the 1980s and violations of UN sanctions throughout the
1990s. In Libya, Muammar Qadhafis revolutionary government
aggressively engaged in four separate border wars with neighboring Chad, and a variety of militarized disputes with other
countries such as Uganda, Sudan, and the United States. In
addition, Qadhafis government supported terrorists and insurgencies in at least thirty countries around the world, though this
dimension of conflict activity is not captured in the MIDs dataset.
In Iran, the revolutionary government under Khomeini did not

12
The 95% confidence intervals associated with the estimated annual rate of
Aggressor-MIDS are: for revolutionary petrostates (0.22, 0.67); for revolutionary
non-petrostates (0.13, 0.21); for non-revolutionary petrostates (0.06, 0.13); and
for non-revolutionary non-petrostates (0.09, 0.13).

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J. Colgan / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 16691676

initiate the IranIraq war, but it did decide to continue the war for
many years after Saddam Hussein declared his willingness to
negotiate for peace in 1982. Irans extensive support for Hezbollah and Hamas is also an instance of aggressive foreign policy. In
Venezuela, President Hugo Chavezs Bolivarian Revolution started
when he came to power in 1999, largely too late to be captured in
this dataset (which ends in 2001). However, Chavezs multiple
aggressive foreign policy actions, such as the Venezuela
Colombia military crisis in 2008, is very much consistent with
the expectations of the theory being tested here.
The relationship between oil, revolutionary governments, and
international military conflict as briefly sketched here is remarkably robust. A variety of robustness checks were performed. The
following additional control variables were inserted into the
analysis: a lagged dependent variable (to control for rivalries
and on-going disputes); a dummy variable for each year; the COW
measure of National Capabilities (CINC); a dummy for the Iran
Iraq Tanker Wars. Alternative forms of the dependent variable
were used, including: (1) only Aggressor-MIDs in which international force was used (as opposed to including displays and
threats of force); (2) all MID onsets, not just Aggressor-MIDs.
Also, all of the state-years associated with each important country
case (for example, Iraq, Iran) were dropped, one country at a time,
and the regressions re-tested. None of these made a meaningful
change to the direction or statistical significance of the key
results. Additional robustness checks, along with a complete
dyadic analysis of military conflict, are published elsewhere (See
footnote 3).

4. Oil and international economic sanctions

The theory that oil income and revolutionary government
interact to create incentives for international conflict also applies
to the field of economic relations, implying that petro-revolutionary states are more likely to engage in the type of aggressive
behavior that provokes other states to respond with economic
sanctions. This is a highly significant area of international relations because the use of economic sanctions is increasing in
frequency, even as traditional international wars are becoming
rarer (Drezner, 1999; Drury, 2005; Hufbauer et al., 2007).
Much of the existing research on sanctions focuses on one of
two problems. Some scholars have focused on the coordination
and cooperation problems required to make multilateral sanctions (Martin, 1993; Drezner, 2003). Others have focused on the
effectiveness and impact of sanctions (Drezner, 1999; Hufbauer
et al., 2007; Drury, 2005). Yet these research questions skip over a
logically prior question: which states are targeted for sanctions?
The imposition of sanctions is clearly a product of multiple
factors, of which the domestic politics of the sanctioning states
is clearly one. Yet the actions of the target state are also
important. All states with divergent interests have the potential
for friction and conflict, but most states avoid taking the kind of
provocative actions which lead to economic sanctions or other
responses. What explains why some states are willing to engage
in the provocative behavior that leads to economic sanctions?
Petro-revolutionary states are more likely to be targeted for
economic sanctions for the same reason that they are more likely
to instigate militarized conflicts: they often have leaders with
risk-acceptant, aggressive preferences, high levels of domestic
political autonomy, and enhanced resources for foreign policy
adventurism. The effect of revolutionary governments once again
plays a crucial role, because one might expect that on its own, oil
would create a rather different incentive: oil-importing states
face an incentive to avoid applying economic sanctions on a
petrostate in order to maintain access to oil supplies. Admittedly

this incentive is not always very strong: the United States has not
hesitated to sanction oil producers such as Iraq, Iran, and Libya in
the past, knowing that it could obtain imported oil from other
sources, such as Saudi Arabia, Norway, or Canada. Still, it is
plausible that major oil-importers hesitate to cut off their trade
access to petrostates by the use of sanctions. Chinas reluctance to
sanction Sudan and Iran are possible examples of this incentive.
The hypothesis that revolutionary governments and especially
petro-revolutionary governments are aggressive and thus provoke other states to target them with economic sanctions can be
tested empirically. Table 3 presents preliminary results from such
research. The dependent variable in this analysis is based on a
dataset developed by Gary Hufbauer et al. (2007) in their landmark study of the effect of economic sanctions. The dependent
variable is dichotomous, coded as 1 when the state is being
targeted for economic sanctions based on its foreign policy
actions and 0 in other years; economic sanctions for reasons of
purely domestic policy (e.g., human rights abuses) are coded as
missing data. The explanatory and control variables used in the
analysis are the same as those used in the previous section for the
analysis of international military conflict propensity.
Table 3 provides significant evidence to support the hypothesis. The dependent variable in Model 1 is all economic sanctions
induced by foreign policy actions. As expected, two of the key
variables have positive and statistically significant coefficients:
Revolutionary Government and Petro-Revolutionary. The variable
Petrostate has no significant effect on its own (i.e., outside of the
interaction term, Petro-Revolutionary). Thus, similar to the pattern
of military conflicts observed in Fig. 1, revolutionary states in
general are more likely to be the target of economic sanctions
than comparable non-revolutionary ones, but this effect is even
larger if they are petro-revolutionary states. The effect is both
statistically and substantively significant: revolutionary non-petrostates and revolutionary petrostates are targeted for economic
sanctions 160% and 580%, respectively, more frequently than

Table 3
Targeting of economic sanctions by state type.

DV
Revolutionary govt
Petrostate
Petro revolution
GDP/cap, log
Population, log
Polity IV
Contiguous borders
Cold war
Revolutionary " cold war
Muslim, %pop.
Major power
N
Log-likelihood

Model 1
FP sanction

Model 2
FP w/cost

1.193
0.369
0.279
0.334
1.454
0.561
! 0.257
0.117
1.224
0.126
! 0.043
0.014
0.138
0.043
0.169
0.174
0.122
0.356
! 2.339
0.701
! 1.244
0.618

1.232
0.371
0.299
0.340
1.422
0.561
! 0.296
0.119
1.211
0.127
! 0.042
0.015
0.144
0.044
0.177
0.179
0.123
0.358
! 2.365
0.702
! 1.187
0.623

6246
! 1196

6222
! 1154

All models use logit regression analysis for time-series panel data.
Panel-adjusted standard errors are given below the coefficients.
Bold indicates p o 0.05.
Regional dummies included but not shown.

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J. Colgan / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 16691676

typical states (e.g., comparable non-revolutionary non-petrostates). Model 2 shows the results of a similar analysis, but in this
model the dependent variable is restricted to sanctions that were
associated with non-trivial economic costs, according to Hufbauer
et al.s database. The results of the two models are very similar.
Some specific examples might prove illustrative of the type of
aggressive activity that frequently leads to sanctions. Some
petrostates are sanctioned because they use their financial
resources, derived from oil income, to finance foreign insurgencies and terrorist activities. Irans support of Hezbollah and
Hamas (amounting to at least $200 million per year, by some
estimates) is one of the reasons it is targeted for sanctions
(Giraldo and Trinkunas, 2007). Similarly, Libyas support of
terrorist groups in the 1980s also led to international sanctions.
In both Iran and Libyas case, the sanctioning states were also
concerned by the weapons of mass destruction being developed
by the target governments. This was also a significant rationale
for the sanctions against Iraq, though the international communitys desire to punish Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait and prevent
another such invasion was also likely a motivation. (It is noteworthy, for instance, that Iraq had a nuclear weapons development program since at least 1981, yet it was not sanctioned until
after it invaded Kuwait.) Thus there are multiple forms of
aggressive foreign policy, any of which might serve as the trigger
for states to impose sanctions.
One potentially competing explanation for the results
observed in Table 3 is that they occur because of a selection
effect. Perhaps, one might argue, this correlation exists not
because revolutionary (and especially petro-revolutionary) states
are more aggressive and more prone to bad behavior, but
instead because sanctioning states are simply more likely to
punish the revolutionary states. This explanation is theoretically
possible, and the analysis of sanction incidents cannot on its own
discount this possibility. Yet this explanation is rendered implausible on the basis of other evidence. First, there is the evidence of
petro-revolutionary states military behavior: we have already
observed in the previous section that petro-revolutionary states
are aggressive in military matters. It seems very likely that this
aggressiveness is the root cause of such states propensity to be
sanctioned, as opposed to a selection effect in the rate of punishment. Second, case studies of states such as Libya, Iraq, and
Venezuela suggest that these states are indeed aggressive in a
whole variety of diplomatic, institutional, economic, and military
ways (Vandewalle, 2006; Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett, 2001;
Karsh and Rautsi, 2003). This undermines the idea behind the
selection effect, namely that petro-revolutionary states are no
more aggressive than other kinds of states. And third, while the
selection effect is a theoretical possibility, there is no actual
evidence that revolutionary governments are systematically more
likely to be sanctioned for a given type of behavior. Thus when the
evidence as a whole is considered, the selection effect does not
appear plausible.
This preliminary finding has important implications for the
study of economic sanctions. Economic sanctions are commonly
conceptualized as a response to provocative state behavior that
serves as an alternative to military conflict. Consequently one
might expect that the same variables that help predict military
conflict also serve to explain the incidence of economic sanctions
(Cox and Drury, 2006). Yet this is not always the case. For
instance, the well-known democratic peace thesis does not
always hold true for economic sanctions: democracies can and
frequently do sanction other democracies (e.g., US and Canadian
sanctions of India in the 1970s, or US sanctions of the Netherlands
in 1948). In contrast, this paper shows that the effect of oil and
revolutionary governments on economic sanctioning behavior is
consistent with the pattern observed in military conflicts: petro-

revolutionary states have a strong propensity for being targeted

for economic sanctions.

5. Policy implications and conclusion

This research suggests that the international trade of oil injects
vast amounts of money into political systems led by a certain kind
of autocratic leader, with significant consequences for the centralization of political power and the aggressiveness of oilexporting states. These facts raise a host of political, economic,
and moral questions about the worlds continued dependence on
petroleum as a primary source of energy in advanced economies.
Given that oil income plays a causal role in international (and
civil) wars, policymakers may find it desirable to minimize the
flow of such income into under-institutionalized states, or to limit
their access to international arms markets.
The implications of this research should be considered in light
of the transition currently unfolding in the geopolitical conditions
of petroleum production. There is an active debate about peak
oil and the amount of oil geologically available on the planet
(Campbell and Laherre! re, 1998; Deffeyes, 2006, 2008; Simmons,
2006; Clarke, 2009; Simon, 1996). Regardless of the outcome of
this debate, it is already clear that declining oil reserves in
advanced democracies, coupled with increasing worldwide
demand, mean that states will increasingly depend on oil being
produced from autocratic and sometimes politically unstable
regions of the world. Fig. 2 shows the impact of rapid oil depletion
rates in OECD democracies. It plots the percentage share of the
global supply for oil that is produced in OECD democracies. In
1950, this share was over 50%. In the 1980s, it was between 30%
and 35%. By 2030, according to projections by the IEA, it will have
fallen below 20%. Consequently, in the future more of the worlds
oil supply will come from non-democratic countries, the most
important of which are in the volatile Middle East. By one
estimate, more than half of future supply potential is projected
to come from just three countries: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran
(El-Gamal and Jaffe, 2010).
What does this transition in the global energy market mean for
international security? One trend seems clear: the amount of oil
income that flows into autocratic and weakly institutionalized
states is set to increase. These are precisely the countries that are
the most likely sites of future revolutionary governments. If a
revolutionary government were to emerge in Saudi Arabia or Iraq,
it could have disastrous consequences. Of course, it is impossible
to predict with any certainty which specific states are most likely
to have revolutionary governments in the future. Nonetheless,
one of the great lessons of this research is that revolutionary
government and large oil incomes are a toxic combination for
international peace and security. We might therefore expect
further turbulence and political violence in oil-producing regions
in the future.
From a policy perspective, the research presented here adds
another item to the growing list of reasons why economic
dependence on oil is a negative force in the world (Deutch
et al., 2006; Crane et al., 2009; National Research Council,
2009). Oil income funds petro-revolutionary states, which fuels
their aggression and creates international conflict. It is no coincidence that the United States and its allies are required to spend
a substantial amount of public wealth and human lives in
military deployments that are directly or indirectly connected to
the global oil industry. The US military is involved in security
operations in oil-producing regions in the Persian Gulf (e.g., Iraq,
Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia), South America (e.g., Colombia), Central Asia (e.g., Kazakhstan) and Africa (e.g., Nigeria)
(Klare, 2004). The cost of US military deployments in the Middle

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OECD share of oil production

J. Colgan / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 16691676

40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

2030

Fig. 2. OECD democracies percentage share of worlds oil production, 19802030. Data for oil production through 2008 comes from the 2009 BP Statistical Review of World
Energy. Estimates of future production come from the IEAs World Energy Outlook 2006. Authors calculations

East alone has been estimated at $2836 billion per year in the
1980s, and $3051 billion per year in the 1990s and early 2000s
(Duffield, 2007, p. 182).13 These military costs are conservatively
estimated, and obviously do not include the political, economic,
and diplomatic costs associated with US oil imports. Nor does it
include, of course, the cost of the imported oil itself: approximately $900 billion in 2008.
The impact of oil on international security is only one of
several negative consequences of the global oil industry. Environmentally, the production and consumption of petroleum is a
leading source of greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global
climate change (IPCC, 2007). The production and use of oil
also generates air and water pollution that harm the local and
regional environments, as vividly demonstrated by the 2010 oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For oil-importing countries, petroleum
dependence makes the economy as a whole vulnerable to oil
supply shocks caused by embargoes, terrorism, piracy, or sabotage. The economic security premium associated with oil shocks
and volatility has been estimated at between $4.50 and $16.50
per barrel of imported oil (Brown and Huntington, 2010; Leiby,
2007). For oil-producing countries, especially in the developing
world, oil income generates corruption, weakens regimes, and
causes civil wars (Ross, 2001, 2006; Le Billon, 2005). For all these
reasons, policies and technologies that create incentives for
alternatives to oil, especially those that are based on renewable
sources, have potentially positive consequences for global affairs.
One step in that direction would be to reduce global subsidies on
petroleum products, which are estimated to be worth $740 billion
in 2010 (Coady et al., 2010).
To the already well-known list of negative consequences, this
paper adds a new, even more pernicious effect of the global
dependence on oil: it is bad for international peace. In a sense, oil
pays for war, by providing financial resources to petro-revolutionary governments which have an elevated propensity to get
into military and economic conflicts. The fact that the causal
chain is long, and the pernicious effects are largely invisible to
consumers at the pumps, does not make the consequences any
less real.
These facts ought to serve as incentives for policymakers to
promote energy alternatives. Creating policy that reflects the full
social costs of oil is politically difficult, but not impossible. While
it is probably impossible to monetize the full social costs of oil,
policymakers can be made aware of each externality associated
with damage to human rights, economic growth, environmental
sustainability, and international peace that oil imposes. Publicinterest advocates are already beginning to connect the dots
between consumer behavior and these externalities in public

13

Figures quoted are in constant 2006 US dollars.

awareness campaigns. These campaigns can and should draw on

the best evidence available from social scientific research.
The sharp rise in energy prices 20042008 made energy
security a high-profile issue for policymakers in the United
States and other oil-importing states. Although energy prices
have abated somewhat since the peak in 2008, they remain at
the time of writing significantly higher than average prices
(19732010). Moreover, as the global energy market continues
to experience structural changes as a consequence of global
climate change and changing patterns of demand, oil and energy
will remain top issues on the policy agenda. Policymakers will
need all the insights on energy security that scholars can provide.

Acknowledgments
I thank Jessica Green for comments and feedback. I thank the
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation for financial support.

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