Many resource-dependent developing countries pursue seemingly shortsighted and suboptimal policies when extracting, taxing, and investing resource rents. Naazneen Barma’s talk will focus on understanding the decisions that governments make at each step of the natural resource management value chain. She will contextualize these micro-level outcomes with an emphasis on two central political economy dimensions: the degree to which governments can make credible intertemporal commitments to both resource developers and citizens, and the degree to which governments are inclusive and inclined to turn resource rents into public goods. Barma will present empirical illustrations from countries in East Asia and the Pacific, along with policy implications.

Naazneen H. Barma is Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. Her research and teaching focus on the political economy of development, natural resource governance, and international interventions in post-conflict states. She has worked extensively for the World Bank, with a regional specialisation in East Asia and the Pacific. Barma has published academic articles on governance, innovation, and institution-building in the developing world and has co-authored policy-oriented pieces on the political economic implications of the evolving international system. She is co-editor of The Political Economy Reader: Markets as Institutions and co-author of Rents to Riches? The Political Economy of Natural Resource-Led Development.