Oil Prices
Paper Masters believe in helping students be the best they can be. Our topic suggestions, like the one you see here on Oil Prices, help point you in the right direction with your research paper. We suggest starting out your paper discussing factors that influence oil prices, such as the following:
- Political changes in structure of an Arab Gulf nation
- Economic fluctuations in Gulf nations
- Social system upheavals
Oil prices fluctuate just like any other world commodity with major price swings influenced by outside factors such as oversupply, shortages, and world events like war. In the Arab Gulf states, oil and its pricing are directly connected to the political and economic structure experienced at any given time. Interestingly, the political and economic structures of these countries have remained resistant to drastic change. Much of this is due largely in part from oil revenues, which can be traced to as the determining element holding these social systems in the Gulf countries together.
Oil Prices and Politics
Examination of the political and economic structures in the Gulf region nations such as Iran and Lebanon reveals a system based on the "old political deal". This deal was contracted between the royal families and the traditional elites. It is this social structure that has offered a resiliency towards change within these countries. The ability for the traditional elites to deliver support to the royal family through economic influence and the ability of the royal family to discover military protection either domestically or from foreign states has allowed them defense and refuge from the larger more powerful nations that border them. Most of this structure is capable due to the revenues found in their natural oil resources.
Oil Prices and Economics
The effect of this entire political and economic structure on oil pricing is great. This is due to the fact that the Gulf countries wish to prevent any shifting of political and economic power that they may currently hold. In order to sustain their economic and political status quo, the ruling families raise and lower oil prices as they see fitting to the economic and political atmosphere at any given period.