Michael L. Ross, Associate Professor of Political Science at UCLA, notes the following correlation between oil and human conflict:
“The world is far more peaceful than it was 15 years ago. There were 17 major civil wars - with ‘major’ meaning the kind that kill more than a thousand people a year - going on at the end of the Cold War; by 2006, there were just five. During that period the number of smaller conflicts also fell, from 33 to 27.
Despite this trend, there has been no drop in the number of wars in countries that produce oil. The main reason is that oil wealth often wreaks havoc on a country’s economy and politics, makes it easier for insurgents to fund their rebellions, and aggravates ethnic grievances.”
More on the impact of oil wealth on the producing countries came from The Economist this past winter:
“Political scientists have long blamed oil wealth–and the rentier economy that so often goes along with it–for the survival of Arab authoritarianism. No taxation without representation, said America’s revolutionaries. Arab governments have inverted this refrain: by appropriating national energy resources and other rents, they neatly absolve themselves of the need to levy heavy taxes and therefore to win the consent of the governed.”
The Economist, “Between Fitna, Fawda, and the Deep Blue Sear: The Arabs,” Jan. 12, 2008
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