Civil society, natural resources & dictatorship

erschienen in Eurasian Geography and Economics

Corinna Breyel & Theocharis Grigoriadis

ABSTRACT

Resource-rich dictatorships are more inclined to repress civil society than others. In this paper, we analyze the collapse and persistence of authoritarian regimes in terms of oil price shocks and the organizational density of civil society. This organizational density indicates the ability of citizens to credibly threaten the dictator with a revolution and therefore induce regime change. In the civil society protest game, regime change becomes likely in the occurrence of a negative oil price shock, whereas a positive oil shock increases the extractive capacity of the dictator, thus preserving the authoritarian status quo. In the civil society persecution game, repression of failed revolutionaries can avert revolution if a negative oil price shock occurs and the organizational density of civil society is low ex-ante. Historical and contemporary illustrations are drawn from Iran and Russia, respectively.