Explaining Heterogeneity in the Political Resource Curse

A vast literature has debated the effects of natural resource wealth, especially oil, on democracy. Despite increasingly sophisticated methodological analyses, there is still no consensus on whether or not a so-called "political resource curse" even exists. However, there is substantial evidence for two propositions. First, significant oil wealth stabilizes authoritarian rule by bolstering rulers’ ability to pay off and/or repress dissenters and society at large. Second, oil’s effects on democracy are neither fully deterministic nor uniform across time and space. Some countries have not been "cursed" or have even been "blessed". Strong governance and resource management institutions have been identified as key variables shaping oil’s effects on democracy. This paper argues that the mechanisms through which institutions mediate the effects of oil on democracy have been both undertheorized and understudied empirically. In addition, the role of other factors such agency, ideas, and local context remains underexplored. Drawing on the existing literature and a comprehensive analysis of oil-dependent states, we propose a new theoretical model of when and how oil, institutions, and other factors may interact and affect regime type. The paper thereby aims to bring greater conceptual, theoretical, and empirical clarity to a rich and complex literature.