Crude days ahead? OIL and the resource curse in Sudan

Abstract

Oil remains a major threat to peace and stability in Sudan as the interim period of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement draws to a close. With a 2011 referendum for Southern secession on the near horizon, political relations between the government of Sudan and the semi-autonomous government of Southern Sudan rest precariously on a fragile economy and waning oil sector. This analysis of the political economy of oil in Sudan since 2005 finds that governance at national, regional, and local levels has largely failed to manage the damaging political and economic effects of the resource curse. Uncertainty surrounding Khartoum’s oil transfers to the South, negligence and corruption among the Southern elite, and the lack of a peace dividend to offset environmental degradation in oil-bearing regions trace the multiplicity of the resource curse in Sudan. While compromises on oil between political elites offer some hope of avoiding a future North–South civil war, the regional and local dimensions of the resource curse remain critical sources of armed conflict.