[cyberax]

> The history lesson is that when the most of the GDP generation doesn't need without the help of the population

Counterexample: China. Or plenty of African countries. Being a petrocracy certainly makes authoritarianism easier, but it's not at all a requirement.

[29athrowaway]

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]

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.