READ and RESPOND to EACH post. (3 total) 150 words each (no more than 175 each) POST SEVEN The resource curse usually refers to countries with an abundance of natural resources which gives nations the opportunity to become wealthy but often the government focuses too much of its efforts in one particular area which leads to the neglect of other major areas. As a result a nation can become overly dependent on the cost of commodities which can also lead to government corruption and unfair regulations within its industries. Both Mexico and Nigeria have seen similar results in the discovery of their natural resources particularly their oil which has impacted the development of their governments greatly. Before Mexico discovered new, vast amounts of oil there government was being called into question about its legitimacy. During this time Mexico was also facing a growing population, chaotic urbanization, and rural poverty (Kesselman, 2012, p449). Despite Mexico’s economic downfall during this time little was being done by the Mexican government to turn things around. However, the discovery of more oil in the 1970s allowed Mexico to improve its economy and become a major oil exporter, but the country now faced its resource curse. Mexico’s resource curse left there economy extremely vulnerable at which points the U.S raised its interest rates in order to cover for the steep drops in international petroleum prices. Then, in 1982 the Mexican government triggered a worldwide crisis by announcing that their government could not pay the interest rates on their foreign debt. After this, political development in Mexico was slow to develop as the people of Mexico began to believe that they had a better chance at solving their own problems without the governments help. Nigeria has long been a nation of clientism, corruption, and unstable authoritarian governing structures (Kesselman, 2012, p537). In the 1970’s Nigeria had an oil boom and with it vast amounts of revenue poured into the country. However, by the late 1970’s the Nigerian government had outspent all of its revenue. This caused the Nigerian government tremendous external debt which led to widespread government corruption and a delay in their political development (Global Edge, 2015). Overall, I would have to say that Mexico is more politically stable than Nigeria despite both their past and present situations. The reason I believe Mexico to be more politically stable than Nigeria has to do with the fact that Mexico still has strong institutions in place which prevent it from political instability. Nigeria on the other hand, although they have a yearning for democracy still faces widespread political corruption which prevents the nation from having a stable government and long term democratic political order which will make it difficult for Nigeria to develop in the future. The Youtube link provided should illustrate my point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj5oTZP79EM Reference: 1.Kesselman, .

1. READ and RESPOND to EACH post. (3 total) 150 words each
(no more than 175 each)
POST SEVEN
The resource curse usually refers to countries with an
abundance of natural resources which gives nations the
opportunity to become wealthy but often the government
focuses too much of its efforts in one particular area which
leads to the neglect of other major areas. As a result a nation
can become overly dependent on the cost of commodities which
can also lead to government corruption and unfair regulations
within its industries. Both Mexico and Nigeria have seen similar
results in the discovery of their natural resources particularly
their oil which has impacted the development of their
governments greatly.
Before Mexico discovered new, vast amounts of oil there
government was being called into question about its legitimacy.
During this time Mexico was also facing a growing population,
chaotic urbanization, and rural poverty (Kesselman, 2012,
p449). Despite Mexico’s economic downfall during this time
little was being done by the Mexican government to turn things
around. However, the discovery of more oil in the 1970s
allowed Mexico to improve its economy and become a major oil
exporter, but the country now faced its resource curse.
Mexico’s resource curse left there economy extremely
vulnerable at which points the U.S raised its interest rates in
order to cover for the steep drops in international petroleum
prices. Then, in 1982 the Mexican government triggered a
worldwide crisis by announcing that their government could not
pay the interest rates on their foreign debt. After this, political
development in Mexico was slow to develop as the people of
Mexico began to believe that they had a better chance at solving

2. their own problems without the governments help.
Nigeria has long been a nation of clientism, corruption, and
unstable authoritarian governing structures (Kesselman, 2012,
p537). In the 1970’s Nigeria had an oil boom and with it vast
amounts of revenue poured into the country. However, by the
late 1970’s the Nigerian government had outspent all of its
revenue. This caused the Nigerian government tremendous
external debt which led to widespread government corruption
and a delay in their political development (Global Edge, 2015).
Overall, I would have to say that Mexico is more politically
stable than Nigeria despite both their past and present
situations. The reason I believe Mexico to be more politically
stable than Nigeria has to do with the fact that Mexico still has
strong institutions in place which prevent it from political
instability. Nigeria on the other hand, although they have a
yearning for democracy still faces widespread political
corruption which prevents the nation from having a stable
government and long term democratic political order which will
make it difficult for Nigeria to develop in the future. The
Youtube link provided should illustrate my point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj5oTZP79EM
Reference:
1.Kesselman, Mark, Joel Krieger, and William A. Joseph.
Introduction to Comparative Politics, 6e
, 6th Edition. Cengage Learning, 2012. VitalBook file.
http://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781305332591/pages/10
9002765
(accessed August 18, 2015).
2.Globaledge.msu.edu. “Nigeria: Risk Assessment.”
Globaledge.edu.
http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/nigeria/risk
(accessed August 19, 2015).
POST EIGHT
Our book defines a resource curse as “the concept that revenue

3. derived from abundant natural resources, such as oil, often
bring unforeseen ailments to countries” (Kesselman, 2013,
599). Both Nigeria and Mexico are oil producing nations who
are economically depending upon oil revenue for the bulk of
their income. In Mexico, 80% of exports were oil dependent in
the late 70s and early 80s. This made their economy
overwhelmingly depending on oil prices (Kesselman, 2013,
449). Mexico thus became dependent on their exports and when
oil prices faltered so too did the Mexican economy. This
caused unemployment to rise. In addition to that, those
associated with the oil companies gained wealth and power,
while the poor get poorer. Initially oil production in Mexico
fueled clientalism and close links with oil and drilling
companies. However, the government has realized this has not
created a sound economic policy and has prompted protests in
rural agricultural areas. Now they have expanded their export
industry to include food stuffs, as well as setting up
manufacturing plants near the US border. In order to alleviate
trading and export issues, Mexico signed NAFTA, which
encouraged increased trade relations between them and the US
and Canada. However, many people feared the agreement was
lopsided and allowed the US undue influence over the Mexican
economy and government (Kesselman, 2013, 453). This has
prompted many internal movements and protests for Mexico to
become more independent and to loosen the controls of
foreigners over their economy. While the rich continue to get
rich, and there are internal struggles between rural and urban
areas, the overall struggle has had somewhat of a unifying
effect on creating a nationalistic pride to become an
economically independent success.
Nigeria, too, is struck particularly hard by the resource
curse. As oil wealth soared so too did the propensity for
corruption as officials made deals with oil companies. When
the oil industry faltered the incentive to become even more
corrupt increased (Kesselman, 2013, 539). The increased
corruption was because people needed a way to make money

4. even when the economy was in shambles. Politically, this has
made the government and its officials beholden to the oil
industry. By making deals with oil company execs political
elites pad their wallets rather than those of the government,
which could be using those resources to further develop their
infrastructure. This has prompted an outcry and even
mobilization and occupation of oil facilities in protest
(Kesselman, 2013, 544). These militias, who occupy the
facilities, have become increasingly militarized and have led to
violent struggles for control in some regions. Its oil
dependence has become so bad that Nigeria is in “the absurd
position of being unable to feed itself, despite rich agricultural
lands” (Kesselman, 2013, 573).
Both nations are struggling to maintain and move
towards becoming consolidated democracies. However, Mexico
is far more stable than Nigeria because it is a more unified
country. The people have a broader based sense of
nationalism. Nationalism allows population to rally around the
idea of being one nation which is comprised of a “human
population sharing a historical territory, common myths and
memories, a mass public culture, a single economy and common
rights and duties for all members” (Mavroudi, 2010, 221).
When using this condition we can first look to Nigeria and see
how it lacks the cohesiveness nationalism calls for.
Nigerians do not share a common history. It was a
nation created by colonial rule, and thus national boundaries
were drawn arbitrarily, united random groups, which
historically have not gotten along. In the North, the Muslim
faith is predominant and in the South Christianity is more
popular. Thus, creating very real culture clashes. In the north
Shari’a (Islamic law), rather than secular law is allowed to be
practiced. This creates an almost separate set of rights between
those formally recognized by the government and those actually
allowed based on Shari’a law. Recently, Boko Haram, is an
extremist group associated ISIS that has emerged, perfectly
demonstrating the ideological conflict within the country. This

5. article, by the New York Times, discusses how the group has
used terrorism in order to seize control of a portion of northeast
Nigeria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/world/africa/suicide-
bomber-kills-3-in-nigeria.html
When a group is able to take control of an area and wrest
power from the government, it shows a lack of stability and
control on the part of the government.
Mexico, on the other hand, is far more united and
stable, despite its own problems. Mexico shares a common
history both in its indigenous native population and its bout of
Spanish colonial control. The people within Mexico also are
predominantly Catholic which again lends itself to having
unified roots and culture. It does struggle when it comes to the
economy between the rural and urban communities, with wealth
being concentrated in cities and the rural areas leaving the
citizens in poverty. However, they are all united by a secular
rule of law in which, theoretically, all people are held to the
same standards.
Bibliography
Kesselman, Mark, Joel Krieger and William A Joseph. 2013.
Introduction to Comparative Politics.
6
th
ed. Boston: Wadsworth
Mavroudi, Elizabeth. 2013. “Nationalism, the Nation and
Migration: Searching for Purity and Diversity”
Space and Polity
14, no. 3:221
Reuters. 2015. “Suicide Bomber Kills 3 in Nigeria”
New York Times.
August 15. Date accessed August 20, 2015.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/world/africa/suicide-
bomber-kills-3-in-nigeria.html
POST NINE

6. In Mexico, during the
Porfiriato,
“policy-makers believed that Mexico could grow rich by
exporting raw materials” and shortly after “[Mexico] had
become so attractive to foreign investors that large amounts of
land, the country’s petroleum, its railroad network, and its
mining wealthier were largely controlled by foreigners” which
“played a significant role in the tensions that produced the
Revolution of 1910” (Kesselman et al. 2013, 446). This reality
of foreign control over the breadth of Mexico’s economy led
them to implement provision in a new constitution to “limit the
power of foreign investors, only Mexican citizens or the
government could own land or rights to water and other natural
resources” (Kesselman et al. 2013, 441).
And since Mexico’s Revolution of 1910, the country has been
fairly stable with a one party dominant democracy; at least in
comparison to some other nations, like Nigeria. Nigeria was a
British colony until 1960 composed of “more than 250
competing ethnic groups, crosscut by two major religious
traditions” which made them easy prey to imperialistic Britain
(Kesselman et al. 2013, 526). In order to maintain firm control
of a territory with such extreme wealth in natural resources the
British began “pitting ethnic groups against each other for
purposes of divide and rule” but just like bad parenting affects a
child later in life, these actions set the tone for a a later
independent Nigerian where “ethnicity would be the primary
element in political identification and mobilization” (Kesselman
et al. 2013, 530).
It is important to note that poverty will always exist, even in the
most perfect attempt of socialism or communism, inequality
will be present. However, no matter which political system used
in a given nation, a good measure of political stability is the
percentage of the citizenry living in poverty or worse, extreme
poverty. Nigeria is controlled by “an increasingly greedy, oil-

7. rich political elite [that] fight to expand their power, while
more than 90 percent of Nigerians struggle to survive on less
than two U.S. dollars per day” (Kesselman et al. 2013, 525).
Meanwhile in Mexico, the wage gap between wealthy and poor
widened between 1950 and 2008. “In 2008, it is estimated, the
bottom 40 percent accounted for 11.9 percent of income, while
the top 40 percent shared 75.6 percent” (Kesselman et al. 2013,
451). It is important to understand though, this statistic is far
better than Nigeria, and that “25 million Mexican continue to
live in rural areas, many of them in deep poverty” whereas
Nigeria’s poverty is widespread and infectious (Kesselman et al.
2013, 451).
Kesselman, Mark, Joel Krieger, and William A. Joseph. 2013.
Introduction to Comparative Politics.
Boston, MA: Wadsworth.