Oil and Development: Technology, Geology, and the ‘Curse’ of Natural Resources

• In Event: Exploring the New Frontiers of Natural Resource Politics

Abstract

In this study we challenge the conventional wisdom about the putative ‘curse’ of natural resources on democratic development. In doing so, we make a potentially controversial claim: that not all “oil wealth” is a curse for democracy. Rather, we argue that it is the easy-to-get oil that can be associated with the pernicious political outcomes, while the more hard-to-get oil, such as that extracted through higher technologically-intensive methods, is not a curse for political development. Our empirical analysis employs a novel approach, by starting with the characteristics of more than 7,000 oil fields around the world to understand the technological intensity, and hence ‘rent’ possibilities for each field. We aggregate these data by country, and find that indeed the oil that is extracted through highly capital-intensive processes has a positive, rather than detrimental, effect on democratic development. In making the argument, we emphasize the importance of domestic technological development, human capital, and the interdependence of regime types.

Authors

• Sarah M. Brooks, Ohio State University

• Marcus J. Kurtz, Ohio State University