Discovering the prize: information, lobbying, and the origins of US–Saudi security relations

Abstract

How do policymakers discover their energy security interests abroad? Conventional wisdom assumes states have an inherent interest in securing an affordable and steady supply of oil. In this paper, I show that policymakers often fail to realize such vital interests on their own. Instead, multinational actors like international oil corporations (IOCs) educate policymakers on their state’s security interests abroad. By integrating prior scholarship on corporate power with insights on lobbying in American politics, I theorize that multinational corporations like IOCs can influence security policy when two conditions are met: first, policymakers demand information on security policy because of issue complexities, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and structural holes in the international system; and second, these corporations possess social ties that grant them the access, trust, and legitimacy to supply those policymakers with information. In the context of energy security, IOCs provide information on foreign sources of oil, threats posed to access, and anticipatory strategies for protecting access. I apply the theory to the origins of U.S. lend-lease aid to Saudi Arabia in 1943. Through sequential analysis, process-tracing, and comparative counterfactual reasoning, I argue an American IOC hastened U.S. interests in securing Saudi oil by using its ties to lobby the Roosevelt Administration at a time when the Administration lacked information on the country. The theory and findings broaden the state-centric view of energy security, contribute new evidence to historiography on US–Saudi relations, and fill an important gap in our understanding of corporate lobbying in security policy.