While economic explanations for the "resource curse" are well established, the political factors explaining why governments fail to take corrective action remain poorly understood. Research has shown that if governments save oil profits abroad and slowly re-introduce the oil-generated revenue into the domestic economy once the rate of return on investment is greater at home than abroad, and perhaps more importantly, once the quality of project implementation has had time to develop, many of the economic problems that plague oil-rich countries can be avoided. The prudence of this strategy is widely advocated and is well-known to oil-rich governments. The question that remains, therefore, is why governments continue to respond to rising oil prices by dramatically increasing domestic spending rather than saving a greater proportion of the windfall abroad? In this dissertation I examine three political factors that affect a government's propensity to save petroleum earnings abroad: political time horizon, elections and the inclusion of fiscal rules in the institutional framework of a country's natural resource fund. Using in-depth case study analysis of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and cross-national statistical analysis, I examine the impact each of the three political factors has on a government's propensity to save oil windfalls abroad and highlight how these factors affect oil revenue management strategies.