In May 2006, president Evo Morales announced the "nationalization" of the country's oil and gas industry. The "nationalization" of Bolivia's oil and gas industry came realized in October 2006 when the Bolivian government signed new exploration and development contracts with the companies operating in Bolivia.
By analyzing the restructuring process of Bolivia's natural gas industry, this research aims to identify practical and theoretical meanings of the recent emergence of resource nationalism around the world. First, the Bolivian case shows that the recent emergence of resource nationalism in Bolivia is not an impromptu policy but a historical product. That is, the resource nationalism in Bolivia has evolved with various historical experiences. Also, the case of Bolivia's natural gas industry confirms that emerging resource nationalism in Bolivia tends to emphasize practical goals while the past form of resource nationalism focused more on ideological goals. The main contents of Bolivia's gas "nationalization" in 2006 are expanding role of the state energy company, YPFB, in the industry and raising tax and royalty contribution imposed to the existing companies. In this sense, the restructuring of Bolivia's gas industry aims at maximizing profits without adamantly trying to change its ownership. According to the evidences presented in this study, several conditions created the present form of practical resource nationalism; 1) the historical experience of negative consequences from the past form of radical resource nationalism, 2) the structural limitations of Bolivian gas industry where investor turned out to be major consumers, and 3) the previous energy industry liberalization policies that achieved neither the Constitutional revision nor the transfer of its ownership from the state to the private. (The rest is omitted.)