The fate of the petrostate
(missing author)Correa's success was rooted in his administration’s model of commodity-dependent left populism. The model goes by different names. Officially, it is “socialism of the 21st century” or “post-neoliberalism.” Indigenous and environmental activists call it extractivism. Correa’s political opponents, right and left, refer to it as correísmo. Since 1972, when a nationalist military regime made newly discovered oil fields the center of its economic policy, Ecuador has been a petrostate: the revenues generated by oil extraction and export, undertaken by both state-owned and foreign companies, are the primary source of state income. Reliance on a small basket of exports is the prevailing economic model across the region, a paradigm with roots in colonial and independence-era patterns of dependence.
Correa's success was rooted in his administration’s model of commodity-dependent left populism. The model goes by different names. Officially, it is “socialism of the 21st century” or “post-neoliberalism.” Indigenous and environmental activists call it extractivism. Correa’s political opponents, right and left, refer to it as correísmo. Since 1972, when a nationalist military regime made newly discovered oil fields the center of its economic policy, Ecuador has been a petrostate: the revenues generated by oil extraction and export, undertaken by both state-owned and foreign companies, are the primary source of state income. Reliance on a small basket of exports is the prevailing economic model across the region, a paradigm with roots in colonial and independence-era patterns of dependence.