Read all posts for ‘autocracy’

Chad is a poor, undemocratic and conflict-ridden country. The promise had been that oil exploitation in the Doba basin, in the south of the country, would bring about a bright future and would finally lift the entire nation out of poverty. Almost ten years after the official opening of the […]

Some scholars suggest that the Middle East’s oil wealth helps explain its failure to democratize. This article examines three aspects of this “oil impedes democracy” claim. First, is it true? Does oil have a consistently antidemocratic effect on states, once other factors are accounted for? Second, can this claim be […]

The seemingly paradoxical outcome of resource-rich countries being development-poor is, in fact, quite predictable given that autocratic governments often rule  resource-rich states. Addressing the resource curse requires changing the incentives facing political leaders so that they are rewarded for transparency and confront robust international legal penalties when they do not. […]