OPEC and IEA

This chapter explores how oil governance change hands between oil companies, oil-producing countries, and oil-consuming countries, using the concepts of knowledge, power, and representation. In the first stage, oil companies used oil knowledge and technology as bargaining power to exploit the oil resources of the Gulf region. The increasing oil awareness of the producing countries deconstructed the colonial oil order. The foundation of OPEC is considered a turning point in the achievement of oil decolonization process. The leading oil-consuming countries, meanwhile, reconstructed oil governance structure. Therefore, IEA was established to serve interests of oil-consuming countries. While early knowledge of oil in the hand of oil companies led to the colonization, the same knowledge in hand of oil-producing countries helped to achieve decolonization. In the last stage, power and knowledge in the hand of the United States have laid postcolonization of oil order. In this oil-governing process, OPEC represents the decolonization of colonial oil order, while IEA represents postcolonization of the oil order. The chapter thus traces the processes of colonization, decolonization, and postcolonization of oil resources and the institutions that govern these processes in the Persian Gulf.