Original article Does rentierism have a conditional effect on violence? Regime oil dependency and civil war in Algeria Silvia D’Amato a, *, Gianni Del Panta b a Scuola Normale Superiore (Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences), Piazza Strozzi 1, 50123, Florence, Italy b University of Siena (Centre for the Study of Political Change), Via Pier Andrea Mattioli 10, 53100, Siena, Italy A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 21 October 2016 Received in revised form 7 January 2017 Accepted 7 January 2017 Available online 19 January 2017 Keywords: Algeria Civil wars Oil Process tracing Rentier states A B S T R A C T This paper intends to shed new light on an established debate within the academic literature concerning the role of oil dependency on regime (in)stability and eventually, civil wars. It does so by focusing on the events that led to the Algerian civil war (1988–1992). The core contribution this paper offers stands on the unveiling of a chain of micro-level events through a Process Tracing (PT) approach. Other than assessing the enabling conditions and the explicative factors associated to the onset of a civil war in a rentier state, we present the results of a dynamic interplay between structure and agency. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the mid-1970s, Algeria was regarded as one of the most successful stories in economic development among oil exporter countries. Less than twenty years later the state was engulfed in a bloody civil war that lasted around one decade (1992–2002) and costed more than 200,000 lives. What can account for this trajectory? Was violence really inevitable? Many scholars see the Algerian events as a critical confirmation of the links between (a) being a rentier state and authoritarianism; and (b) being a rentier state and the clash of civil war. Algeria largely vindicated both these two perspectives, finding itself at an interesting and largely unique intersection between an arrested process of democratization and civil war. This article aims to shed new light by applying a different theoretical perspective on this long-studied conundrum (Mortimer, 1996; Cavatorta, 2009; Aït-Aoudia, 2015). It offers qualitative empirical insights on the Algerian case to assess the circumstances under which being a rentier state can lead the way to large-scale violence. It will be stressed that state configuration matters not only for the official decisions and activities it supports, but also because doing so, certain political movements and collective behaviour are more probable than others. The attempt to analyse the relationship between regime dependence on hydro- carbons and the violent mobilization of opponent non-state actors is pursued through a via media between structure and agency, allowing a fruitful dialogue between these two levels of analysis. In particular, by applying a narrative variation of Process Tracing (PT), a reconstruction of the micro-chain of the events based on triangulated historical observations is proposed. However, this paper is not simply interested in establishing whether there is a relationship between rentierism and political violence. The analysis also intends to unveil the mechanism between an external shock on rentier states and the clash of civil wars, given certain contextual and enabling conditions. After reviewing the main approaches to oil regime stability and the onset of political violence, a theoretical conceptualization of the hypothesized mechanism will be established. Next, in line with the methodological requirements of PT, the paper will set the context – and contextual condition – of the Algerian political- economic setting prior to the outburst of contestations. Conse- quently, two scope conditions under which the mechanism is expected to be activated are presented: a) discriminations in the educational and labour systems; and b) the presence of a strong alternative political actor – in the Algerian context, by the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS). The final part of the paper will instead focus on in-depth empirical reconstruction of the mechanism leading to instability and, eventually, civil war. The emphasis is placed on a series of micro-events during the critical phase of 1988–1992. Arguments will be supported through the analysing of relevant crucial * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: silvia.damato@sns.it (S. D’Amato), jofplant@gmail.com (G. Del Panta). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.01.002 2214-790X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The Extractive Industries and Society 4 (2017) 361–370 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The Extractive Industries and Society journal homepage: www.else vie r.com/locat e/e xis