Selectorates, Resource Wealth, and Policy Agendas: Why Petroleum Only Sometimes Perpetuates Patriarchy.

How does resource wealth affect the policies autocracies choose? We propose a new theory of how selectorates influence non-distributive policy choices. Taxation requires compliance, giving the public limited policy influence even in authoritarian regimes. Increased resource rents makes government less reliant on taxes and thus less responsive to the public. Yet regimes will still be responsive to selectorates and their policy demands. This theory explains how \petroleum perpetuates patriarchy" more successfully than Ross (2008, 2012). Using Ross's data, we demonstrate that the association between oil income and reduced female empowerment is present only in autocracies (especially monarchies), that the relationship is strongest when oil rents are highest, and that the relation- ship holds even when we lag explanatory variables by forty years. We also show that oil income is associated with outcomes that are consistent with our theory but unexplained by his, such as increased adolescent and total fertility and decreased alcohol consumption, tobacco use, and contraceptive availability. These outcomes are plausibly linked to values espoused by Islamic actors. We use qualitative evidence to demonstrate that our supply-side theory is more powerful in cases crucial to Ross's findings. Petroleum may perpetuate patriarchy, but only when influential members of the selectorate insist it should. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]