Resource Rents, Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Abstract

Using data for the 2005-2017 period, we consider the effects of resource rents on the sub-components of Freedom House’s measures of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Higher resource rents lead to a deterioration in Political Pluralism and Participation, but do not affect other sub-components. We also consider the relationship between resource rents and aggregate measures of Political Rights and Civil Liberties between 1975 and 2015. We find no evidence that resource rents affect Political Rights or Civil Liberties. We demonstrate why our results contrast with previous literature.