Changing approaches to security / Working Paper
Energy: a reinforced obstacle to democracy?
30/07/2008 By Richard Youngs
 |
| Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images |
Rising oil and gas prices appear to have helped shore up autocratic producer states across the world. They also seem to have led Western states to dilute their support for democratic reforms in these countries. But while this conventional wisdom correctly restates the problematic relationship between energy and democracy, the overall picture is more complex.
This paper reveals that the opaque management of increased oil and gas revenues has sparked pressure for governance reforms from within producer states and has also encouraged new international initiatives linking energy security with good governance.
Download the full version of this publication, available in English (218 kB)
To read or listen to the comments of our experts in the media about this and other topics, please visit our Press section.
Keywords
Authoritarian regimes Democracy Democracy promotion Energy Security Energy Supply GovernanceRelated publications
- Alliances and Disagreement in South America: Energy and Integration
- Energy and Development: lessons from Nigeria
- Europe and Russia, Beyond Energy
- Europe's energy policy: economics, ethics, geopolitics
- Europe's external energy policy: between geopolitics and the market
- European Energy Security: balancing Priorities
- Spain and Equatorial Guinea: a triumph of energy realism?
- The politics of energy
Bio author: Richard Youngs
Democracy promotion. EU foreign policy.
