We study theoretically and empirically whether natural resource windfalls affect political regimes. We show that windfalls have no effect on democracies, while they have heterogeneous political consequences in autocracies. In deeply entrenched autocracies, the effect of windfalls is virtually nil, while in moderately entrenched autocracies, windfalls significantly exacerbate the autocratic nature of the political system. To frame the empirical work, we present a simple model in which political incumbents choose the degree of political contestability and potential challengers decide whether to try to unseat the incumbents. The model uncovers a mechanism for the asymmetric impact of resource windfalls on democracies and autocracies, as well as the the differential impact within autocracies.

We study the political impact of commercial television in Italy exploiting the staggered introduction of Berlusconi’s private TV network, Mediaset, in the early 1980s. We find that individuals with early access to Mediaset all-entertainment content were more likely to vote for Berlusconi’s party in 1994, when he first ran for office. The effect persists for five elections and is driven by heavy TV viewers, namely the very young and the elderly. Regarding possible mechanisms, we find that individuals exposed to entertainment TV as children were less cognitively sophisticated and civic-minded as adults, and ultimately more vulnerable to Berlusconi’s populist rhetoric.