Premium
A Theory of Civil Conflict and Democracy in Rentier States *
Author(s) -
Aslaksen Silje,
Torvik Ragnar
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the scandinavian journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.725
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1467-9442
pISSN - 0347-0520
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2006.00471.x
Subject(s) - economic rent , economics , democracy , productivity , politics , affect (linguistics) , resource (disambiguation) , competition (biology) , civil conflict , economic system , rent seeking , internal conflict , microeconomics , macroeconomics , political science , sociology , law , computer network , ecology , communication , biology , computer science
The effects of resource rents on the political equilibrium have been studied in two main types of models. The first tradition uses models of conflict, and studies how resource rents affect the intensity and duration of civil conflict. The second tradition uses political economy models, where resource rents affect the political equilibrium due to changes in the costs and benefits of buying votes. Although they provide considerable insight, these traditions have little to say about when democracy emerges, and about when conflict emerges. In this paper, by integrating the earlier model traditions, we suggest the simplest possible framework we can think of to study the choice between conflict and democracy. We show how factors such as resource rents, the extent of electoral competition, and productivity affect economic and political equilibria.