This survey documents the different arguments discussed in the academic literature on whether and how economic inequality and the emergence and stability of democratic political systems are connected. While early research in this domain has often focused on new and emerging democracies, this...

"We study theoretically and empirically whether natural resource windfalls affect political regimes. We document the following regularities. Natural resource windfalls have no effect on the political system when they occur in democracies. However, windfalls have significant political...