Introduction

Abstract

This book is about the nature of economic growth and development in one of the smallest — and richest — states in the world, Negara Brunei Darussalam (henceforth Brunei). A micro-state, physically divided into two separate territories, the development and character of its economy and society has been intimately bound up with the growth of the hydrocarbon industry in the state, with one company, Royal Dutch-Shell, dominating the production and marketing of the state’s oil and gas products. If, as Sampson (1988, 11) has suggested, the role of the oil company is ‘in political and human terms, one of the oddest stories in contemporary history’, this is certainly the case for Brunei and its oil industry. But, rather than seeking to provide a company history of Royal Dutch-Shell in Brunei, the focus of the book is somewhat wider. In seeking to examine the linkages between oil, economic development and diversification, it aims both to provide an informed account of the ways in which government has sought to manage oil revenues and develop the Brunei economy, and to raise some more general issues regarding the relationships between resource development and economic growth.