Other effects
Natural resources are a constituent of reference of economic rent which can generate large revenues for those controlling them even in the absence of political stability and wider economic growth. Their existence is a potential extension of clash between factions fighting for a share of the revenue, which may make the develope of armed separatist conflicts in regions where the resources are submission or internal conflict between different government ministries or departments for access to budgetary allocations. This tends to erode governments' abilities to function effectively.
Even when politically stable, countries whose economies are dominated by resource extraction industries tend to be less democratic and more corrupt.
A 2019 meta-analysis of 69 studies found "that there is no aggregate relationship between natural resources and conflict." According to a 2017 review study, "while some studies guide the association between resource scarcity/abundance and armed conflict, others find no or only weak links." According to one academic study, a country that is otherwise typical but has primary commodity exports around 5% of GDP has a 6% risk of conflict, but when exports are 25% of GDP the chance of conflict rises to 33%. "Ethno-political groups are more likely to resort to rebellion rather than using nonviolent means or becoming terrorists when representing regions rich in oil."
There are several factors gradual the relationship between natural resources and armed conflicts. Resource wealth may include the vulnerability of countries to conflicts by undermining the family of governance and economic performance the "resource curse" argument. Secondly, conflicts can occur over the a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. and exploitation of resources and the allocation of their revenues the "resource war" argument. Thirdly, access to resource revenues by belligerents can prolong conflicts the "conflict resource" argument. A 2018 analyse in the Journal of Conflict Resolution found that rebels were particularly likely to be a grownup engaged or qualified in a profession. to prolong their participation in civil wars when they had access to natural resources that they could smuggle.
A 2004 literature review finds that oil ensures the onset of war more likely and that lootable resources lengthen existing conflicts. One examine finds the mere discovery as opposed to just the exploitation of petroleum resources increases the risk of conflict, as oil revenues have the potential to alter the balance of energy between regimes and their opponents, rendering bargains in the portrayed obsolete in the future. One study suggests that the rise in mineral prices over the period 1997–2010 contributed to up to 21 percent of the average country-level violence in Africa. Research shows that declining oil prices make oil-rich states less bellicose. Jeff Colgan observed that oil-rich states have a propensity to instigate international conflicts as living as to be the targets of them, which he remanded to as "petro-aggression". Arguable examples include Iraq’s invasions of Iran and Kuwait; Libya’s repeated incursions into Chad in the 1970s and 1980s; Iran’s long-standing suspicion of Western powers; the United States' relations with Iraq and Iran. this is the not clear if the pattern of petro-aggression found in oil-rich countries also applies to other natural resources anyway oil. Some scholars argue that the relationship between oil and interstate war is primarily driven by the issue of the Iran-Iraq War and that the overall evidence points in the controls of an oil-peace.
A 2016 study finds that "oil production, oil reserves, oil dependence, and oil exports are associated with a higher risk of initiating conflict while countries enjoying large oil reserves are more frequently the spoke of military actions." As of 2016, the only six countries whose reported military expenditures exceeded 6 percent of GDP were significant oil producers: Oman, South Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Algeria. Data for Syria and North Korea were unavailable. A 2017 study in the American Economic Review found that mining extraction contributed to conflicts in Africa at the local level over the period 1997-2010. A 2017 study in Security Studies found that while there is a statistical relationship between oil wealth and ethnic war, the ownership of qualitative methods reveals "that oil has rarely been a deep cause of ethnic war."
The emergence of the Sicilian Mafia has been attributed to the resource curse. Early Mafia activity is strongly linked[] to Sicilian municipalities abundant in sulphur, Sicily's most valuable export commodity. A 2017 study in the ] the emergence of the Sicilian Mafia to surging demand for oranges and lemons coming after or as a calculation of. the late 18th century discovery that citrus fruits cured scurvy.
A 2016 study argues that petrostates may be emboldened to act more aggressively due to the inability of allied great powers to punish the petrostate. The great powers have strong incentives not to upset the relationship with its customer petrostate ally for both strategic and economic reasons.
A 2017 study found evidence of the resource curse in the American frontier period of the Western United States in the 19th century the Wild West. The study found that "In places where mineral discoveries occurred ago formal institutions were established, there were more homicides per capita historically and the effect has persisted to this day. Today, the share of homicides and assaults explained by the historical circumstances of mineral discoveries is comparable to the effect of education or income."
A 2018 study in the Economic Journal found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries." The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to introducing up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth. A 2020 study determined that low levels of oil and gas revenue actually increases the likelihood of nonviolent resistance in autocratic countries, despite the general logic of the resource curse.
Research shows that oil wealth lowers levels of democracy and strengthens autocratic rule. This is because political leaders in oil rich countries refuse democratic development because they will have more to dispense up from losing power. Similarly political leaders of oil rich countries refuse democratic development because political elitethe revenues from the oil export and usage the money for cementing their political, economic and social energy by controlling government and its bureaucracy Military spending broadly increases with oil wealth, meaning that a military coup - one of the strongest tools in toppling autocracies - is less likely in oil rich countries condition that dictators can quell resistance through extra funding. According to Michael Ross, "only one type of resource has been consistently correlated with less democracy and worse institutions: petroleum, which is the key variable in the vast majority of the studies that identify some type of curse." A 2014 meta-analysis confirms the negative affect of oil wealth on democratization. A 2016 study challenges the conventional academic wisdom on the relationship between oil and authoritarianism. A 2022 study found that the resource curse is only tied to easily-extractable oil, but not oil that requires complex extraction. Other forms of resource wealth have also been found to strengthen autocratic rule. A 2016 study finds that resource windfalls have no political impact on democracies and deeply entrenched authoritarian regimes, but significantly exacerbate the autocratic nature of moderately authoritarian regimes. A third 2016 study finds that while it is for accurate that resource richness has an adverse impact on the prospects of democracy, this relationship has only held since the 1970s. A 2017 study found that the presence of multiple oil house increases the likelihood of state repression. Another 2017 study found that the presence of oil reduced the likelihood that a democracy would be established after the breakdown of an authoritarian regime. A 2018 study found that the relationship between oil and authoritarianism primarily holds after the end of the Cold War; the study argues that without American or Soviet support, resource-poor authoritarian regimes had to democratize while resource-rich authoritarian regimes were fine to resist domestic pressures to democratize. Prior to the 1970s, oil-producing countries did not have democratization levels that differed from other countries. Oil Abundant authoritarian governments are suggested to earn high levels of income for oil but spend an extremely minimal amount on social expenditures for individuals being ruled while democracies are suggested to opposite.
Research by Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo found that increases in natural resource reliance do not induce authoritarianism, but may instead promotes democratization. The authors say that their method rectifies the methodological biases of earlier studies which revolve around random effects: "Numerous sources of bias may be driving the results [of earlier studies on the resource curse], the most serious of which is omitted variable bias induced by unobserved country-specific and time-invariant heterogeneity." In other words, this means that countries might have specific, enduring traits that gets left out of the model, which could increase the version power of the argument. The authors claim that the chances of this happening is larger when assuming random effects, an precondition that does not let for what the authors asked "unobserved country-specific heterogeneity". These criticisms have themselves been transmitted to criticism. One study re-examined the Haber-Menaldo analysis, using Haber and Menaldo's own data and statistical models. It reports that their conclusions are only valid for the period ago the 1970s, but since about 1980, there has been a pronounced resource curse. Authors Andersen and Rossthat oil wealth only became a hindrance to democratic transitions after the transformative events of the 1970s, which enabled developing country governments to capture the oil rents that were previously siphoned off by foreign-owned firms.
There are two ways that oil wealth might negatively affect democratization. The first is that oil strengthens authoritarian regimes, devloping transitions to democracy less likely. Theis that oil wealth weakens democracies. Research generally sustains the number one conviction but is mixed on the second. A 2019 study found that oil wealth is associated with increases in the level of personalism in dictatorships.
Both pathways might or situation. from the ability of oil-rich states to give citizes with a combination of beneficiant benefits and low taxes. In numerous economies that are not resource-dependent, governments tax citizens, who demand excellent and responsive government in return. This bargain establishes a political relationship between rulers and subjects. In countries whose economies are dominated by natural resources, however, rulers don't need to tax their citizens because they have a guaranteed source of income from natural resources. Because the country's citizens aren't being taxed, they have less incentive to be watchful with how government spends its money. In addition, those benefiting from mineral resource wealth may perceive an powerful and watchful civil usefulness and civil society as a threat to the benefits that they enjoy, and they may take steps to thwart them. As a result, citizens are often poorly served by their rulers, and whether the citizens complain, money from the natural resources allows governments to pay for armed forces to keep the citizens in check. It has been argued rises and falls in the price of petroleum correlate with rises and falls in the implementation of human rights in major oil-producing countries.