Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (10): The Curse of High Oil Prices? (Revisiting Friedman’s First Law of Petropolitics)

Thomas Friedman’s so-called “First Law of Petropolitics” states that the price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions. As the price of oil rises and money floods into the hands of a “petrolist state”, the government of this state can use this money to crush the opposition, and also to gain the upper hand in their relations with the international community. They become less dependent on trade relationships with other countries and so they can do what they please domestically and internationally. They also are less dependent on taxation, and hence on democratic representation which normally evolves along with taxation. Revenues from energy sales allow for government spending to keep the population satisfied with autocracy and to dampen pressures for democratization.

I’ve been rather scathing about this “law” in an older post, and I’ve found some data to back me up. There seems to be no empirical evidence that high oil prices undermine democracy, help sustain autocracy, or prevent transitions to democracy.

This doesn’t mean that the West shouldn’t move away from its dependence on oil. It’s just that the reason is simply ecological rather than political: oil dependence isn’t bad because it supports autocrats elsewhere in the world; it’s bad because of the environment.

Other posts about the transition (or lack thereof) to democracy are here, here and here. A post about the related topic of “putinism” is here.

Human Rights Quote (58): The Price of Oil and the Pace of Freedom – Friedman’s First Law of Petropolitics

Thomas Friedman

(source)

Suddenly, regimes such as those in Iran, Nigeria, Russia, and Venezuela are retreating from what once seemed like an unstoppable process of democratization, with elected autocrats in each country using their sudden oil windfalls to ensconce themselves in power, buy up opponents and supporters, and extend their state’s chokehold into the private sector. Thomas Friedman

Thomas Friedman put forth in 2006 the First Law of Petropolitics which states “that the price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions”. There is, in other words, a negative correlation between the two. This “law” is a case of the resource curse: countries that rely on abundant natural resources, such as petrol, have a higher chance of being ruled by dictatorial regimes.

As the price of oil rises and money floods into the hands of a “petrolist state”, the government of this state can use this money to crush the opposition, and also to gain the upper hand in their relations with the international community. They become less dependent on trade relationships with other countries and so they can do what they please domestically and internationally. They also are less dependent on taxation, and hence on democratic representation which normally evolves along with taxation. Revenues from energy sales allow for government spending to keep the population satisfied with autocracy and to dampen pressures for democratization.

Venezuela, Russia and Nigeria seem to be the most recent examples.

(source)

However, the world isn’t as simple as this. This isn’t the “axiom to explain our age” as Friedman claims it is. Blaming everything on oil or even the resource curse in general means glossing over all the other causes of autocracy, as well as the beneficial effects of energy independence: imagine what good it would do to the world and the U.S. if the latter would only depend on its own oil production.