The Institutions Curse Natural Resources, Politics, and Development Business and Public Policy Series

The 'resource curse' is the view that countries with extensive natural resources tend to suffer from a host of undesirable outcomes, including the weakening of state capacity, authoritarianism, fewer public goods, war, and economic stagnation. This book debunks this view, arguing that there is an 'institutions curse' rather than a resource curse. Legacies endemic to the developing world have impelled many countries to develop natural resources as a default sector in lieu of cultivating modern and diversified economies, and bad institutions have also condemned nations to suffer from ills unduly attributed to minerals and oil. Victor Menaldo also argues that natural resources can actually play an integral role in stimulating state capacity, capitalism, industrialization, and democracy, even if resources are themselves often a symptom of underdevelopment. Despite being cursed by their institutions, weak states are blessed by their resources: greater oil means more development, both historically and across countries today.

1. Introduction; 2. Three puzzles and some building blocks; 3. Intellectual heritage of the institutions curse view; 4. The institutions curse; 5. Not manna from heaven after all: the endogeneity of oil; 6. The resource blessing; 7. Whither the Arab Spring?; 8. Conclusions.

Victor Menaldo is an associate professor of Political Science at the University of Washington and an affiliated faculty of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, Near and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Center for Environmental Politics. He has published, or has forthcoming articles in, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, the Annual Review of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, World Politics, Comparative Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Economics and Politics, Political Science Quarterly, and Policy Sciences. He has also penned op-eds in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, Foreign Policy, and the Seattle Times.