The devil's excrement as social cement: natural resources and political terror, 1980–2002
Indra de Soysa is Professor of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. He is an Associate Fellow at the Center for the Study of Civil War at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). He recently co‐edited two books entitled Energy wealth and governance in the caucasus and central Asia (Routledge) and How social norms help or hinder development (OECD). His articles appear in International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, World Development, and Conflict Management and Peace Science, among others.Email: indra.de.soysa@svt.ntnu.no
Helga Malmin Binningsbø is currently a PhD candidate in political science (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2005–) and Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Civil War, PRIO (2005–). Her research interests include peace‐building, post‐conflict power sharing and transitional justice. She has recently published an article in Population and Environment on the effects of environmental scarcity on civil war.Email: helga.binningsbo@svt.ntnu.no
Abstract
Using a direct measure of repression of dissent, we find ample evidence to suggest that energy and mineral wealth strongly predict higher levels of political terror, results that are both statistically and substantively large. Oil‐rich and mineral‐rich countries contain higher levels of political terror regardless of the level of autocracy, the incidence of civil and international war and sundry controls. The results are robust to different measures of resource wealth, alternative measures of repression, testing methods and several model specifications. The quality of economic governance, measured as the level of economic freedom, has strong negative effects on political terror and conditions the effects of resource wealth in the direction of more humane governance. Our results suggest several entry points for global and local policy‐makers that seek to extirpate the curse of natural wealth.
