29 July 2004

Resource Wealth and Political Regimes in Africa

This paper presents empirical evidence suggesting a negative correlation between the presence of a sizeable natural resource sector and the level of democracy in Africa. The authors thus argue that resource abundance is a crucial determinant of democratic governance in Africa. Accordingly, their results show that post-Cold War democratic reforms have been successful only in resource poor countries such as Benin, Mali and Madagascar, whereas resource-rich countries such as Nigeria and Gabon can only become democratic if they introduce strong mechanisms of vertical and horizontal accountability within the state.

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