Does the "richness" of a country, in the sense of having many natural resources, affect its chance of being democratic?

Why do I feel that the smaller and more rich a country is, the less democratic they tend to be... Or is it really not about that, it is just about the so many other social factors etc?

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Adstar · 56-60, M

It has no effect one way or the other.. What matters is the culture of the people.. If they are willing to put up with corruption and the rule of a dictator then resources or not they will end up being ruled by a Dictator and their corrupt cronies..

I am from Australia which is probably in the top 20 democratic nations and it is a major resource exporter of Minerals, Food and Energy..

Then you have a place like DRC Democratic Republic of Congo which is also a major resource exporter which is probably in the least democratic list of nations..

Oh yeah thats one good sign that a country is not democratic.. They have the word democratic in their nation's official title. 🤣

BlueVeins · 22-25

You're exactly right, actually; economists have been observing this for ages.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/resource-curse.asp

BittersweetPotato · 31-35, F

@BlueVeins Yep I am aware of the resource curse concept , but I don't think it answers this question. I am asking about the relationship between having democracy in a country, and between wealth and size.. If such relationship exists at all. The resource curse concept on the other hand talks about a situation whereby countries would underperform economically because they depended too much on their natural resource and did not diversify their sources of income.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

What, like Norway with the oil, or Sweden with iron ore, or Finland with vast quantities of timber?

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ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@BittersweetPotato

PPP is more of an inflation related metric

Not exactly, it measure what the inhabitants of the country can buy with their money in the country. You might also look at the Economist magazine's Bag Mac index.

BittersweetPotato · 31-35, F

@ninalanyon Well, what you can buy with your money, is highly linked to inflation. If you have high inflation, you won't be able to buy much! PPP looks at the strength of currencies and level of prices across countries, which is again highly linked to inflation.

BittersweetPotato · 31-35, F

@ninalanyon I will post back here if I find something worth posting.

PiecingBabyFaceTogether · 31-35, M

Because secularism is haram 😔 but this is very interesting.
Qatar sentenced a guy for life for criticizing the elections laws.
Brunei which is even smaller and has 437k population yet being gay is punishable by death it makes no fucking sense.
UAE being transgender is illegal and punishable by prison.

I'm trying to think of non Arab or non Muslim examples but I can't really think of any.

Crazywaterspring · 61-69, M

It could be democratic until they elect a government Washington doesn't approve of.

redredred · M

Africa is a huge resource rich continent filled with lots and lots of countries. Do your own research.

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BittersweetPotato · 31-35, F

@redredred and last time I checked, Africa was a continent and not a small country, so unless you want to answer the question properly and enlighten us with your knowledge by providing a complete answer and examples, don't answer at all. But don't ask me to do my research, if I wanted to do that, I would not have posted the question here.

But just for the records, Africa is a poor example because its natural resources were robbed.

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SomeMichGuy · M

@BittersweetPotato Just block and be happy.

UsernameAlreadyInUse · 26-30, M

Maybe because those rich in resource country surely been ruled and colonize by british,those goverment system implement by them still carried on after they leave.

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