Legal empowerment for local resource control

negotiations with the investor), and is represented by politicians and
government officials. The negotiating power between investor and host
state is shaped by imbalances in skills, money and other assets, but also
by the extent to which the project is crucially tied to the host country due
to location of precious resources or other factors. Bureaucratic inertia and
passive resistance from government officials may frustrate the
implementation of deals concluded between investors and politicians,
thereby undermining the power of investors (Filer with Sekhran, 1998).
The host state engages in varying relations with local resource users (from
support to repression). It is composed of different structures (different
ministries; state-owned companies; central, deconcentrated and
decentralised agencies) that represent possibly conflicting interests (e.g.
ministries responsible for petroleum operations and for the environment).
It acts through individuals whose behaviour is shaped by varying
combinations of official government policy and self-interest (corruption,
rent-seeking, protection of vested interests).
International financial institutions (the World Bank through its IFC and
MIGA but also IBRD and IDA arms; regional development banks) and
commercial lenders supporting the investment project. These may require
the investor to comply with their institutional policies (e.g. on
environmental and social impact assessment), thereby affecting relations
between investors and local resource users. International financial
institutions may also exert considerable influence on the host state
because of the importance of their overall lending to the state.
The home state where the investor’s parent company is based. This may
exert pressures on international financial institutions and/or on the host
state (including through its official development agency and through
international financial institutions), so as to affect decisions on whether
the project should go ahead and under what terms.
National elites in the host country, including government officials,
domestic business and traditional elites (linked by relations ranging from
confrontation to, more often, alliance or even hybridisation; Bayart, 1993).
These may have vested interests in the investment project in terms of
business opportunities through backward and forward linkages, of
opportunities for rent-seeking and personal gain, of consolidation of in-
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