In stateless societies, coercion is privately provided; violence is employed to engage in, and to defend against, predation. At best, violence results in mere redistribution; being destructive, it more often results in a loss of social welfare. When organized, however, violence can be socially productive; it can be employed to defend property rights, thereby strengthening the incentives to engage in productive activity. To explore how violence can be rendered a source of welfare, the authors develop a model of a stateless society in which people’s rights to the product of their labor are secure only if they possess coercive capabilities. Using case materials and formal logic, the authors then compare this outcome with that obtained when private agents reward specialists in violence for defending property rights. In doing so, we plumb the role of the state. The premise of this study is that coercion is as normal a part of life as is exchange; what matters is not its presence or magnitude but rather its structure and form. 1 In stateless societies, coercion is privately provided; violence is employed to engage in, and to defend against, predation. At best, it results in mere redistribution; being destructive, it more often results in a loss of social welfare. When organized, however, violence can be socially productive; it can be employed to defend property rights, thereby strengthening the incentives to engage in productive activity.

University. We thank Bill Foltz and Pauline Jones-Luong for comments. The usual caveat applies. Political economists point to level of economic development, poverty and income inequality as the most important determinants of political regimes. We present empirical evidence suggesting a robust and negative correlation between the presence of a sizeable natural resource sector and the level of democracy in Africa. We argue that not only is resource abundance is an important determinant of democratic transition, but also partially determines the success of democratic consolidation in Africa. The results illuminate the fact that post-cold war democratic reforms have been successful only in resource poor countries such as Benin, Mali, and Madagascar. We argue that resourcerich countries such as Nigeria and Gabon can become democratic only if they introduce strong mechanisms of vertical and horizontal accountability within the state.