Oil Abundance and Violent Political Conflict: A Critical Assessment JONATHAN DI JOHN School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Final version received November 2005 ABSTRACT This paper addresses one of the empirical claims of the ‘resource curse’ argument, namely that oil abundance raises the probability of political violence. I argue that the two main theoretical premises of the oil-civil-war link, rent-seeking and the rentier state model, fail to provide a convincing argument as to why oil economies are more vulnerable to the onset of civil war. I find that three often-mentioned mechanisms as to why oil economies succumb to political violence not convincing; that oil economies are poor economic performers; that oil economies generate high corruption; and that oil economies tend to produce authoritarian regimes. I also examine the empirical evidence on the oil-civil-war link and conclude that the results are not robust. I conclude with some policy implications. I. Introduction Since the end of the Cold War, interest in analysing conflict in low- and middle- income countries has expanded exponentially (for reviews, see de Soysa, 2000, 2002a; Cramer, 2002a, 2000b). One of the more influential propositions of recent times is the so-called ‘resource curse’ argument – the idea that abundance of natural resources, and in particular oil, causes poor growth and raises the incidence, intensity and duration of conflict. While oil abundance has long been considered beneficial to economic and political development, the recent poor economic performance of oil exporters and the growing incidence of civil wars in mineral-rich economies have revived the idea that their resource abundance may be more of a curse than a blessing. The most influential empirical work on the causes of civil war has been undertaken by Collier and Hoeffler (1998, 2001, 2002a, 2004), who find that primary commodity exports increase the likelihood of the onset of civil war. Their most recent work, which covers 161 countries and 78 civil wars between 1960 and 1999, claims that a state’s dependence on natural resources – measured as the ratio of Correspondence Address: Jonathan Di John, Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK. Email: jd5@soas.ac.uk Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 43, No. 6, 961–986, August 2007 ISSN 0022-0388 Print/1743-9140 Online/07/060961-26 ª 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/00220380701466450