Oil wealth flowing to politicians discourages democracy  The wealth from oil, or other natural resources, holds back democratization as a result of the “resources curse” or “paradox of plenty”. Resources provide money, and money is what is needed to run a security state. When money can come from natural resources there is little need to tax the people, instead it becomes a “rentier” economy where the dictator has resources to buy support without recourse to taxation. [1] It is essentially the opposite of the well-known idea ‘no taxation without representation’; if the money comes not from taxes but from oil what need is there for democracy?  This proposal takes away the option of having access to large oil revenues instead providing only a limited amount to the state rather than the pockets of the dictator. This prevents the buying of key groups such as the army and the policy who can be used to repress the population. It is not by chance that the only countries in the Arab Middle East that could be considered democracies before the Arab Spring never had oil; Jordan and Lebanon.  [1] Michel Chatelus and Yves Scehmeil, ‘Towards a New Political Economy of State Industrialisation in the Arab Middle East’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May, 1984), pp.251-265, pp.261-262