Resource Wealth, Democracy and Mobilisation

Moises Arce, Rebecca E. Miller, Christopher F. Patane and Marc S. Polizzi

Journal of Development Studies, 2018, vol. 54, issue 6, 949-967

Abstract: The impact of resource wealth on society remains highly contested in the literature. Some perspectives suggest that resource wealth is associated with political apathy, while others indicate that resource wealth fosters violent civil conflicts. We leverage these seemingly contradictory impacts of natural resources on society by expanding the scope of inquiry to explore different types of resource wealth (oil and minerals) as well as other dimensions of political life (protest). Utilising a global dataset for the period 1950–2006, we test the impact of resource wealth on mobilisation. We find that while oil wealth demobilises citizens in all regime types, mineral wealth strongly correlates with higher levels of mobilisation in democracies, though not in autocracies. In addition, using survey data, we examine individual-level attitudes toward protest participation in two resource-rich states, Peru and Ecuador. The results indicate that an individual living in a mineral-rich country like Peru is more likely to participate in a protest compared to an individual living in an oil-rich country like Ecuador. Our findings highlight the contributions of the resource activism framework for understanding the connection between natural resources and mobilisation.

Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2017.1311408 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:54:y:2018:i:6:p:949-967

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2017.1311408

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().