Oil rents and the tenure of the leaders in Africa

Abstract

It is often underlined that African oil producing countries are politically unstable as a result of this natural resource. Based on the data relating to the duration in office of 101 heads of States exercises of power of 26 African countries (North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa), our study finds that: this instability does not appear in the executive branch of the state. Conversly, using survival analysis including non-parametric and parametric estimators, and controlling for many factors which affect the leader's tenure, our results suggest a positive link between oil rents and the duration in office of the leader. While other minerals rents do not appear to have the same effect. An interpretation of these results is that; oil has a strategic aspect that other mining products do not have. Hence, no matter what the type of political regime is in country, the international community is tempted to exert fewer pressures for the change of the leader in an oil producing State.