Petrocracy is a weird term because it is not oil itself the one ruling but the o... | Hacker News

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29athrowaway 10 months ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Nobel Peace Prize 2025: María Corina Machado

Petrocracy is a weird term because it is not oil itself the one ruling but the ones who control the oil. We have a term for that, oligarchy.

cyberax 10 months ago [–]

It's actually now used in a lot of political science papers.

It means a particular combination of autocracy and oil-dependence. It results in especially toxic regimes, that can be kept stable for quite a long time.

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