ABSTRACT
Economic diversification policies have been a feature of government policy for over half a century, with varying degrees of success. A desire to diversify the economic base should be 'too difficult to dismiss' in terms of mitigating the potential risks associated with excessive specialisation. Kazakhstan is an example of an oil-producing country with a relatively nascent history of economic diversification. Russian resource policies are often viewed as a subset of regime sustainability and foreign policies, whereas diversification in Australia is essentially a subset of an economic liberalism agenda to ward off fears of becoming 'a banana republic'. In fact, the quality of institutions, human and physical infrastructures are all critical determinants of the success of the economic diversification process. Economic diversification in terms of both products and exports is therefore destined to remain at the top of government agendas in several resource-rich regions and countries around the world.
