Autocratic Heterogeneity and Democratic Transition: Lessons from and for Arab Oil-Rich Economies

This project, contrasting the experiences of Algeria and Libya, attempted to provide answers to questions about natural resource rents and how they raise the stakes for government control, and what prompts some leaders, as in Algeria, to use rent-sharing to curb revolutionary fervor, and others to avoid it. Is there an association between rents and the nature of political competition and political incentives in democracies? If there is, is this association a direct consequence of the rents, or rather it is a consequence of the autocratic legacy that was a product of those rents?