Terry Karl
Terry Karl appears in Chevron, Venezuela and the Paradox of Plenty as the political economist used to explain Venezuela as a Petrostate. The episode says Karl is fairly sure she coined the term petrostate, and it uses her analysis to connect the country’s oil boom to Dutch Disease, corruption, waste, and institutional weakness.
Karl’s most important contribution in the source is the Political Resource Curse framing. She rejects the idea that oil itself has moral agency: the resource becomes a blessing or curse depending on how people in political offices and corporate leadership manage it. That frame links PDVSA, Oil Revenue Dependence, and Oil Nationalization to governance choices rather than to geology alone.
The episode also uses Karl’s relationship with Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso as a historical bridge. Perez Alfonso told her to study what oil was doing to Venezuela, and the source uses his warning to turn the oil story from a discovery narrative into a political-accountability problem.
Connections
- Venezuela - central country case.
- Petrostate, Dutch Disease, and Political Resource Curse - concepts Karl explains in the source.
- Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso - oil minister whose warning shaped Karl’s research prompt in the episode.
- PDVSA, Oil Revenue Dependence, and Oil Nationalization - institutions and mechanisms tied to Karl’s analysis.