ABSTRACT
Revenues from natural resources, especially in the extractive sector, so the near-consensus in the literature goes, are said to have enabled conflicts, especially civil wars (regardless of whether ‘greed’ or ‘grievance’, or a mix of both, are seen as the main drivers). Comparatively little is known in the literature about the post-conflict political economy in resource-rich countries and international efforts to influence its trajectory. This chapter seeks to present an overview of attempts to deal with resource flows in the context of post-conflict international statebuilding (see also Wennmann 2011). This means three things: preventing a return to war by having ‘spoilers’ access resources; ‘building peace’ or even ‘statebuilding’ by having revenues flow to government coffers and increase state capacity as well as economic growth; and, finally, and perhaps more polemically, having those resources ‘build’ the right kind of state and society through proper revenue management and pro-poor expenditure. Much of this agenda is the product of broader normative and policy concerns around good governance and transparency mainstreamed by western donors over the past 15 years (both bilateral and via the EU, OECD, the IFIs, and the UN system), applied to the statebuilding enterprise.
