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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Timber Booms, State Busts: The Political Economy of Liberian Timber |
Author: | Johnston, Patrick |
Year: | 2004 |
Periodical: | Review of African Political Economy |
Volume: | 31 |
Issue: | 101 |
Period: | September |
Pages: | 441-456 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Liberia |
Subjects: | civil wars foreign investments economic development economic policy wood industry Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Politics and Government Economics and Trade |
External links: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0305624042000295530 http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=TC5Q77JXW8C733KWDRFK |
Abstract: | This article places the political economy of Liberian timber in the context of the theory of State failure. It explores the relationship between private investment, State failure and war, highlighting how Charles Taylor exploited timber concessions to foreign firms as a proxy for effective State institutions in Liberia. It examines the reasons why foreign investment - particularly in Liberia's timber industry - prolonged the civil war and destroyed the country's formal economy. And it challenges the neoliberal assumption that increased economic activity provides incentives for rulers to build stable institutions and provide security to investors. Neoliberal prescriptions coupled with a changing global economy produced no incentive for Charles Taylor, a faction leader from 1989 and Liberia's president from 1997 until exile in 2003, to attempt to develop State institutions or to prevent the collapse of the formal economy. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |