IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revape/v31y2004i101p441-456.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Timber Booms, State Busts: The political economy of Liberian timber

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Johnston

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 neo-liberal assumption that increased economic activity provides incentives for rulers to build stable institutions and to provide security to investors. Neo-liberal 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Johnston, 2004. "Timber Booms, State Busts: The political economy of Liberian timber," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(101), pages 441-456, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:31:y:2004:i:101:p:441-456
    DOI: 10.1080/0305624042000295530
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0305624042000295530
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0305624042000295530?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. International Monetary Fund, 2003. "Liberia: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix," IMF Staff Country Reports 2003/275, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Langlotz, Sarah & Potrafke, Niklas, 2019. "Does development aid increase military expenditure?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 735-757.
    2. Geheb, Kim & Mapedza, Everisto, 2008. "The political ecologies of bright spots," IWMI Books, Reports H041593, International Water Management Institute.
    3. Carr, Jamie A. & Petrokofsky, Gillian & Spracklen, Dominick V. & Lewis, Simon L. & Roe, Dilys & Trull, Nicholas & Vidal, Adriana & Wicander, Sylvia & Worthington-Hill, John & Sallu, Susannah M., 2021. "Anticipated impacts of achieving SDG targets on forests - a review," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    4. Geheb, Kim & Mapedza, Everisto, 2008. "The political ecologies of bright spots," Book Chapters,, International Water Management Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:31:y:2004:i:101:p:441-456. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CREA20 .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.