Structural Review of Rent Government and Its Effect on Democracy Process

Abstract

Rent state is one of the theories that many analysts and researchers working on matters regarding developing countries have used to justify the lack of political and economical development in countries relying on revenues obtained from external resources called rent. Specifically, this theory concerns with the states relying heavily on godsend revenues: revenues generally obtained from natural and underground resources for instance, oil. According to the theory, rent states tend to exhibit qualities of self-sufficiency by using the revenues accrued from these natural sources to stabilize themselves and their intimate companions in the political, economic and other areas of cooperation. In this paper, various works of writers and theorists of rent state have been analyzed with specific emphasis on the notion that the structure of rent governments is an important obstacle to the formation of a democratic and politically developed society. The paper further emphasizes that such conditions eventually result in the development of non-democratic and authoritative regimes in those countries regardless of the rent resource being employed. Consequently, the probability of political and economic corruption, and the jeopardizing of civil society organizations increases beyond limit, to a large extent, in order to preserve individual authority and control of the god-given wealth.

Key words: State; Rent states; Democracy