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Does Oil Hinder Democracy? Author(S): Michael L Trustees of Princeton University Does Oil Hinder Democracy? Author(s): Michael L. Ross Reviewed work(s): Source: World Politics, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Apr., 2001), pp. 325-361 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25054153 . Accessed: 16/07/2012 16:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and Trustees of Princeton University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to World Politics. http://www.jstor.org DOES OIL HINDER DEMOCRACY? ByMICHAEL L.ROSS* Introduction scientists believe that oil has some very odd proper POLITICALties. Many studies show that when incomes rise, governments tend to more some an become democratic. Yet scholars imply there is excep to can to a tion this rule: if rising incomes be traced country's oil wealth, they suggest, this democratizing effect will shrink or disappear. min Does oil really have antidemocratic properties? What about other erals and other commodities? What might explain these effects? not area The claim that oil and democracy do mix is often used by to states the specialists explain why the high-income of Arab Middle East have not become democratic. If oil is truly at fault, this insight could help explain?and perhaps, predict?the political problems of oil as exporters around the world, such Nigeria, Indonesia, Venezuela, and the oil-rich states of Central Asia. If other minerals have similar prop account or of erties, this effect might help for the absence weakness de mocracy in dozens of additional states in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin "oil America, and Southeast Asia. Yet the impedes democracy" claim has received little attention outside the circle of Mideast scholars; not moreover, it has been carefully tested with regression analysis, ei ther within or beyond theMiddle East. use states I pooled time-series cross-national data from 113 between to 1971 and 1997 explore three aspects of the oil-impedes-democracy claim. The first is the claims validity: is it true?Although the claim has been championed byMideast specialists, it is difficult to test by examining cases only from the Middle East because the region provides scholars with * were to at Previous versions of this article presented seminars Princeton University, Yale Univer at sity, and the University of California, Los Angeles, and the September 2000 annual meeting of the comments on ear American Political Science Association inWashington, D.C. For their thoughtful am to lier drafts, I grateful Pradeep Chhibber, Indra de Soysa, Geoffrey Garrett, Phil Keefer, Steve Knack, Miriam Lowi, Ellen Lust-Okar, Lant Pritchett, Nicholas Sambanis, Jennifer Widner, Michael owe to Woolcock, and three anonymous reviewers. I special thanks Irfan Nooruddin for his research wrote was a assistance and advice and to Colin Xu for his help with the Stata. I this article while I vis re iting scholar at The World Bank inWashington, D.C. The views I express in this article, and all maining errors, are mine alone. WorldPolitics 53 (April2001), 325-61 326 WORLD POLITICS Table 1 Index of Oil-Reliant Statesa 1. Brunei (1994) 47.58 2. Kuwait 46.14 3. Bahrain 45.60 4. Nigeria (1991) 45.38 45.14 5. Congo, Dem. Rep. 6. Angola (1996) 45 7. Yemen 38.58 8. Oman 38.43 9. Saudi Arabia 33.85 10. Qatar (1994) 33.85 11. Libya (1988) 29.74 12. Iraq (1983) 23.48 13. Algeria 21.44 14. Venezuela 18.84 15. Syria 15.00 16. 13.46 Norway 17. Iran (1983) 11.95 18. Ecuador 8.53 19. Malaysia 5.91 20. Indonesia 5.69 21. Cameroon 5.63 22. Lithuania 4.48 23. Kyrgyz Republic (1996) 4.25 24. Netherlands 3.14 25. Colombia 3.13 divided GDP. Most aOil reliance is measured by the value of fuel-based exports by figures are based on data for 1995 fromWorld Bank (fn. 71).Figures for Brunei, Nigeria, Qatar, and Iran are the most recent available. Since 1995 for and Libya, Iraq, figures Angola Kyr are not 1996 are gyz Republic available, figures reported. on all Mideast little variation the dependent variable: virtually govern ments have been authoritarian since gaining independence. Moreover, are absence of in the there other plausible explanations for the democracy distinct Mideast, including the influence of Islam and the regions culture a influence on de and colonial history. Does oil have consistently negative mocracy once one accounts for these and other variables? two dimensions. One Second, I examine the claim's generality along obvious reasons the claim is geographic. For oil-impedes-democracy ten has been explored most carefully byMideast specialists: of the fif on are teen states most reliant oil wealth in the Middle East region (see Table 1). But is oil an obstacle to democracy only in theMideast, or does it harm oil exporters everywhere? If the hypothesis is true for all oil-rich DOES OIL HINDER DEMOCRACY? 327 Table 2 of Mineral-Reliant _Index States'1_ 1. Botswana 35.11 2. Zambia 24.97 3. Bahrain 16.39 4. Chile 12.63 5. Angola (1996) 11.5 6. Papua New Guinea 10.13 7. Togo (1991) 7.79 8. Bolivia 5.53 9. Congo, Dem. Rep. (1983) 7.00 10. Jordan 5.28 11. Peru 3.84 12. Central African Republic 3.16 13. Iceland 3.11 14. Zimbabwe 3.00 15. Norway 2.49 16. Belgium 2.23 17. Canada 2.22 18. Australia 2.20 19. Lithuania 1.96 20. Jamaica 1.87 21. Slovak Republic 1.74 22. South Africa 1.69 23. Morocco 1.65 24. Cameroon 1.62 25. Kyrgyz Republic 1.56 aMineral reliance ismeasured by the value of nonfuel mineral exports divided by GDP. Most figures are for 1995 based on data fromWorld Bank (fn. 71). The figures for Congo and are the most recent the 1996 is for since no Togo available; figure reported Angola, fig ure for 1995 is available. states, then its importance has been underappreciated by other political scientists. If it holds only for states in theMideast, why is this so? The other dimension is sectoral: do other types of minerals and on other types of commodities have similar effects governments? While to oil exporters tend be concentrated in the Middle East, exporters of nonfuel minerals aremore geographically dispersed (seeTable 2). Have these states, too, been rendered less democratic because of resource are not wealth? Or does petroleum have antidemocratic properties that found in other commodities? Finally, I explore the question of causality: if oil does have antidem test ocratic effects, what is the causal mechanism? I three possible a explanations: "rentier effect," which suggests that resource-rich 328 WORLD POLITICS use rates governments low tax and patronage to relieve pressures for a that resource greater accountability; "repression effect," which argues to wealth retards democratization by enabling governments boost their a funding for internal security; and "modernization effect," which holds on to that growth based the export of oil and minerals fails bring about to the social and cultural changes that tend produce democratic gov ernment. I also have two broader aims. The first is to encourage scholars who to study democracy incorporate the Middle East into their analyses. en Many "global" studies of democratization have avoided the Mideast tirely.1 Influential studies by Przeworski and Limongi and Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, and Limongi simply drop the oil-rich Mideast states no reason from their database.2 There is, however, sound analytical for to states scholars of democracy exclude these from their research, and so can to doing only weaken any general findings. It also tends margin alize the field ofMiddle East studies. to on My second aim is address the literature the "resource curse." Many of the poorest and most troubled states in the developing world resource is a have, paradoxically, high levels of natural wealth. There resource a coun growing body of evidence that wealth itself may harm resource try's prospects for development. States with greater natural to more counter wealth tend grow slowly than their resource-poor are more to from civil wars.4 This article parts.3 They also likely suffer a resource curse: suggests as well that there is third component to the oil and mineral wealth tends to make states less democratic. 1 See, for example, Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Lawrence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); D. Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Democracy inDevel Ronald Modernization andPostmod oping Countries (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1988); Inglehart, emization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 2 Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, "Modernization: Theories and Facts," World Politics 49 (January 1997); Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jos? Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi, De "What Makes Democracies Endure?"JournalofDemocracy 7 (January 1996); idem, Democracy and Institutions and in 1950-1990 York: Uni velopment: Political Well-Being the World, (New Cambridge versity Press, 2000). 3 Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew M. Warner, "Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth," no. for Development Discussion Paper 517a (Cambridge: Harvard Institute International Develop ment, 1995); idem, "The Big Push, Natural Resource Booms and Growth," Journal ofDevelopment Nat Economics 59 (February 1999); Carlos Leite and JensWeidmann, "Does Mother Nature Corrupt? IMF ural Resources, Corruption, and Economic Growth," Working Paper, WP/99/85 (1999); Michael L.
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