Michael

upheaval in global energy markets in the 1970s appears to have triggered the resource curse, by producing a drastic increase in the volume and volatility of government revenues in the oil-producing states.

Today, the oil states are 50 percent more likely to be ruled by autocrats and more than twice as likely to have civil wars as the non-oil states.

They are also more secretive, more financially volatile, and provide women with fewer economic and political opportunities.