Main topic: The macro-economic consequences of volume-significant export of energy commodities.

Overarching theme: Government legitimacy.

Outline: The challenges associated with oil revenues in the perspectives of industrialized countries, developing countries with stable institutions and developing countries with fragile institutional framework.

Sources: You can start with an illustration of some of the challenges associated with oil revenues: poor governance and rent seeking. After getting the initial idea, it can be useful to give a thought to what is legitimacy and how can it be compromised in fragile situations.  The problems triggered by excessive oil revenues are not confined to state building and governance, though. There are negative (mostly economical) effects that plague developed countries with stable institutions too. Have a look at this comprehensive literature review by Ramez Badeeb et al.  who provide a great account of the evolution of our understanding of the "resource course" concept. While the whole paper is interesting and relevant, make sure that you understand the hypothesized mechanisms of the resource course effects covered in section 4. Additional google searches might be needed.

Get ready: Read more about legitimacy - what is it?  How does it come to being and how is it maintained?

Presentation: