Lessons from Strange Cases

Abstract

The work linking natural resource wealth to authoritarianism and under-development suffers from several shortcomings. In this article, the authors outline those shortcomings and address them in a new empirical setting. Using a new data set for the U.S. states spanning 73 years and case studies of Texas and Louisiana, the authors are able to more carefully examine both the diachronic nature and comparative legs of the resource curse hypothesis than previous research has. They provide evidence that natural resource dependence contributes to slower economic growth, poorer developmental performance, and less competitive politics. Using this empirical setting, they also begin parsing the mechanisms that might explain the negative association between resource wealth and political and economic development. They draw implications from intranational findings for resource abundant countries across the world and suggest directions for future cross-national and cross-state work.

The resource curse and child mortality, 1961–2011

“…(Although, it should be noted that some scholars have disputed the claim that petroleum wealth reinforces autocratic rule; see, for example, Haber and Menaldo, 2011;Wacziarg, 2012). For similar reasons it is argued that access to oil revenues enhances the ability of incumbent elected leaders to secure re-election (Goldberg et al, 2008;Mahdavi, 2015). Thus, access to non-tax revenues enhance the ability of autocratic and democratic leaders to stay in power.…”

Why some countries are immune from the resource curse: The role of economic norms

“…20 Perhaps the greatest challenge to the resource curse hypothesis comes from the observation that none of the proposed causal arguments offer an explanation for the abundant anecdotal evidence that the resource curse does not apply to consolidated democracies or rich countries. 21 For instance, Norway is the world's seventh-largest oil and second-largest natural gas exporter, and its economy is highly dependent on the petroleum sector which accounts for the largest portion of export revenue and about 20% of government revenue. 22 Yet, the country has been able to maintain the highest possible Polity regime score (+10) since the discovery of resource wealth almost three decades ago.…”

“…Similarly, Goldberg et al have pointed out the historical experiences of Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the U.S, which have displayed no symptoms of the political resource curse despite significant natural resource wealth. 3 They also note that while some suggest that the rentier state hypothesis only applies to the developing world below a certain income threshold, "…the mechanisms adduced to explain the correlation are independent of income and therefore ought to still be at work." 4 Observing that the extant studies offer an insight only on the average effect of natural resources on regime type, scholars have recently started to investigate whether the political effect of natural resources is a conditional one.…”

Trayectorias De Desarrollo: Una Nueva Forma De Conceptualizar La Variación De La Democracia Subnacional en Colombia 1988-2015

“…Respecto a esta problemática se pueden encontrar diversas estrategias conceptuales. La mayoría de investigaciones sobre democracia subnacional usan criterios conceptuales de la definición minimalista de democracia para identificar los distintos grados de democracia a nivel territorial (Giraudy 2010;y 2015Gel'man y Ross 2010;Gervasoni 2010b;Goldberg et al 2008;Borges 2007;Montero 2007), por lo que generalmente también se han extrapolado de esta literatura las categorías que se utilizan para clasificar a regímenes nacionales al ámbito local y regional. Las primeras investigaciones sobre este tema utilizaron la clasificación En las últimas décadas del siglo XX, un número considerable de países ha realizado transiciones desde regímenes políticos autocráticos o con regímenes democráticos limitados hacia la democratización y la apertura política de sus sistemas políticos (Whitehead, 2010;O'Donnell, 1993).…”