In response to fears of imminent resource exhaustion, skyrocketing and volatile resource prices and the question of secure supply of resources, nation states have devised different national resource supply strategies. Some have chosen a more direct approach, such as acquisition of resource extracting firms abroad through state owned firms, combined with domestic protectionist measures, while others nation states are more oriented towards setting the framework for long-term supply contracts or free resource markets. Why do we observe such different state reactions to this common shock? And what does lead to a specific type of reaction? The paper argues that different configurations in industry structure and the institutional setting lead to variation in policy outcomes along the dimensions of policy objectives and exclusiveness. It develops a two-stage theoretical argument to explain the diverging state reactions. Firstly, it argues, that the predominant specialization of the resource industry on metal extraction, metal production or metal processing will shape the objectives of the policy. Second, it suggests that institutional characteristics such as the choice of venues or the number of interest groups impact on the influence of interest groups on resource policies. The paper uses resource policies in the iron and steel sector to evaluate the argument, as steel is necessary for most industrial production and infrastructure and thus politically highly relevant. It then tests the implications of the theoretical framework with a qualitative comparative analysis of OECD and BRICS countries. This study wants to contribute to understanding the mechanism behind the choice of resource policies and to shed light on the question of state intervention in other situations of scarcity.
