Has Oil Wealth Given the Rich Oil Producing States of the Middle East more Power in the International Area?

Essay from the year 1997 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Near East, Near Orient, grade: 56/100 Punkte, Lancaster University (Department of Politics and International Relations), course: MA16: Politics and International Relations of the Middle East, language: English, abstract: The vast oil reserves of the oil-producing countries in the Middle East region such as exist in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar or Bahrain, and its meaning for the international economy dominated by the industrial states, should not be underestimated.Oil as a weapon to compete with the international economic market has given the oil- exporting states in the Middle East wealth, strength, and power on the domestic and the international level. However, it has, at the same time, created and increased a greater dependency between the OPEC states and the West, which has created disadvantages for the oil-exporting countries in the Middle East region.This essay intends not only to show whether oil wealth has given the Arab countries a greater say within the framework of the international economy but also explores the increased dependency of the Middle East region on the oil-importing industrialised countries and its impact on the national economy of the Arab states.For this purpose, section I is concerned with the meaning of oil about the wealth and prosperity of the oil-producing countries and its creation of economic, technical, and financial dependency upon the West. Section II aims to explore the role of the OPEC, the pricing policies it has carried out and the impact of the declining power of the OPEC on the level of the international economy. Section III presents some concluding remarks.