Counter-shock ― The Oil Counter-revolution of the 1980s

The oil price collapse of 1985-86 had momentous consequences globally: in terms of prevailing energy paradigms, the non-fossil fuel alternatives simply turned uncompetitive while huge new markets opened up for fossil fuels, particularly in China and India. In international relations, the previous talk of an OPEC 'imperium' was turned upside-down. This volume is the first to put the oil price 'counter-shock' of the mid-1980s into historical perspective. Compared to the much-debated 1973 'oil shock', the 'counter-shock' has not received the same degree of attention. The fall in oil prices and the consequences for different nations have traditionally been seen simply as the result of the marketplace finally making its way into the energy realm after years of 'politicised' conflicts. The contributors show that the 'counter-shock' was the result of a set of processes that had developed over the previous ten years in a number of fields: from pricing mechanisms to intra-OPEC discipline; from Saudi Arabia's policies as a producer to America's policies as a consumer; from expectations nurtured by politicians across the globe to ideas about development and environment; from relations between the National Oil Companies and their respective governments to international financial relations. Featuring some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field, this book deals with these issues with a balanced approach between the global picture and local study cases. In particular, it highlights the crucial interaction between the oil counter-shock and the political 'counter-revolution' against state intrusion in economic management put forward by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the same period.

Giuliano Garavini is Senior Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence and Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities at NYU Abu Dhabi. He headed the Padua unit of the project The engines of growth: for a global history of the conflict between renewable, fossil, and fissile energies, 1972-1992, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. He is the author of After Empires. European Integration, Decolonization and the Challenge from the Global South, 1957-1986 and co-editor of Oil Shock. The 1973 Crisis and its Economic Legacy. Massimiliano Trentin is Assistant Professor of History and International relations of the Middle East at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna. He works on the International History of the Middle East and North Africa, with a special focus on the interplay between diplomacy, economics and development. He is the author of Engineers of Modern Development: East German Experts in Bathist Syria, 1965-1972, and editor of The Middle East and the Cold War: Between Security and Development. He is the Principal Investigator of the PRIN National Research Grant from the Italian Ministry of Scientific Research for the project The Making of the Washington Consensus: International Assets, Debts and Power 1979-1991.Duccio Basosi is Assistant Professor of History of International Relations at the Ca Foscari University of Venice. He has worked extensively on the international political economy of the 1970s and 1980s. Between 2011 and 2016 he has coordinated the research project The Engines of Growth: A Global History of the Conflict between Renewables, Fossil and Fissile Energies 1972-1992, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.