Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2026
This chapter systematizes the comparison of the Nigerian and Saudi cases to offer four primary insights about the past and future trajectories of economic liberalization in resource-wealthy, autocratic and hybrid regimes. First, at the level of political actors, the Nigerian organized private sector appears dynamic and competitive in its pursuit of procedural rents when compared to the ossified Saudi Chambers of Commerce. Second, at an historical level, the Saudi and Nigerian histories of corporate law reform share a common experience of initial foreign importation, before a process of local tailoring and, eventually, their liberalization becoming rent-conditional. Third, at a theoretical level, the diverse causal processes evidenced within the two cases illustrates the potential for greater causal processes within the flexible rent-conditional reform (RCR) framework. Fourth, considering the potential global transition to a lower-carbon economy, the application of the RCR theory suggests diverging future potentials of liberalization in high- and low-cost oil producers, and potential newfound relevance for non-fuel mineral producers.
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