International relations and oil: Towards a networked power framework of analysis

Oil has been afforded a privileged role in the study of international relations, and will continue to be an important subject in the coming decades. In this chapter we argue that changes in the structure of the international oil market - centered on the deverticalisation of the industry, the emergence of new types of actors with a diverse set of interests and preferences, and climate change policies - make it important to develop new theoretical frameworks to understand how oil affects international relations. We do not argue oil has become less politicised. Rather, we suggest that the core risk of physical supply security due to state behaviour has fallen substantially due to changes in the structure of the international market for oil, with new actors emerging following the deverticalisation of the industry and helping the management of the oil market. We propose that international relations scholars need to adopt new notions of power and how it is exercised in order to better understand the international relations of oil. In particular, we suggest theoretical frameworks that recognise the networked structure of power ought to replace a focus on the politics of bilateral sanctions imposed to affect the physical supply of oil, which have been core to studies of the politics of oil to date.