Post-Soviet Resource Curse? Natural Resource Abundance and Authoritarianism

Natural resources promise wealth. In many resource states, however, this hope was not fulfilled. Therefore, the theory of the resource curse posits a connection between resource abundance and distorted economics and politics. But an empirical comparison of the post-Soviet states does not confirm such a connection. Corruption flourishes to the same extent in Turkmenistan, a country rich in natural gas, as in Kyrgyzstan, a country with few resources; Russia's rulers are just as authoritarian as Armenia's. If an abundance in resources does nonetheless impede modernisation, a change in the short-term is not to be expected: the post-Soviet resource states will go on producing oil and natural gas for decades to come and will thus be able to generate large profits.