A correspondent writes I do enjoy getting correspondence in my inbox (willparbury[@]hotmail.com). Some of it is bizarre, some of it, like medicines, I should be getting from a doctor not an email. But some of it is actually rather thought provoking such as this snippet below.

I read that with the exception of Norway, the quality of democracy is in inverse proportion to the quantity of oil owned by any given country. The simple thesis was that oil money allowed rulers to rule without having to gain consent for taxation. I thought this a fairly credible notion, considering that British Parliamentary democracy (such as we still have) was to a large extent brought into existence as part of resisting tax demands. The Americans famously argued pretty much the same with “no taxation without representation”, too.

I wonder is this correct. Certainly oil companies have to do business in some pretty dodgy parts of the world and oil may be a factor in the governance in some states but saying that the UK is an oil producer yet this is not a factor in mainstream politics. OK the SNP but they don't count. There must be a PhD in there for someone at least, if not a professorship so in the spirit of Mike Ion tell us what you think.

My thoughts on oil or more related to the oil importers than the producers. I think that there is a prima facie case which argues that if a country has a resonable amount of power in the international system say the US or China and they are an energy importer as these two countries are then there foreign policy will be influenced by the need to secure energy supplies.  ¶ 3:13 pm