Very interesting article in Knack this last week by Thomas L. Friedman: “As Energy Prices Rise, It’s All Downhill for Democracy”. Shows a nice link between the price of oil and the degree of democracy in the oil countries.
“I call it the “First Law of Petropolitics,” and it posits the following: The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions in petro-ist states.”
Full version is in the comments, for those who would still like to read it.
Also in the news:
Jumping is not a crime!
Ruben
As Energy Prices Rise, It’s All Downhill for Democracy
NY Times – May 5, 2006
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In case you haven’t noticed, all the oil-rich bad guys seem to be having a fine and dandy time these days.
Iran, awash in oil money, thumbs its nose at U.N. demands for it to desist in its nuclear adventures and daily threatens to wipe Israel off the map. President Vladimir Putin of Russia, awash in oil money, jails his opponents at home and cozies up to America’s opponents, like Iran and Hamas, abroad. Sudan, awash in oil money, ignores the world’s pleas to halt its genocide in Darfur. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, awash in oil money, regularly tells America and his domestic opponents to take a hike.
And Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Angola, Saudi Arabia, Chad and Syria, all flush with oil or gas, are comfortably retreating from even baby steps of democratization.
There is a pattern here. Many people assumed that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we were going to see an unstoppable wave of free elections and free markets slowly spread across the globe. For a decade that wave seemed, indeed, to be real and powerful.
But as the world has moved from an oil price range of $20 to $40 per barrel to a range of $40 to $70 a barrel, a very negative counterwave has arisen.
What I would call “petro-ist” states â
Jumpeeh!
Jumpeh?? dah?? moek ik is iet latn zien!?!