Human security in Algeria under the rentier economy, challenges and bets

Abstract

Abstract: Numerous studies over the last four decades have shown that rentier economies or development based on the export of natural resources, such as oil and gas, not only failed to develop their economic efficiency, but also produced a worse socio-economic situation than it would be without the exploitation of these resources. As well as the experience of recent decades has shown that depending on a rentier economy policy is not enough to move underdeveloped countries into the ranks of developed ones, in contrary to what some experts believed that rent income would achieve development and societal well-being for their countries, as the results of development based on natural resources export were negative during these decades. Among these results are the weakness of economic diversification, the misery of social welfare indicators, the high levels of poverty and unemployment, the poor level of education and the spread of corruption, the decline of democracy and the level of transparency, and the emergence of internal conflicts and wars. Based on the concept of the rentier state theory, and the approach of the Dutch disease, the political units that depend on the wealth of natural resources, witness to a large extent the same political conditions and have the same socio-economic outputs, which assume for the most part that democratic transformation is not necessary in them, as is the case in most Rentier states, such as the North African states - Algeria in this case, the hypothesis is that wealth derived from rents allows the state to dilute or suppress democracy, accordingly, this study investigates the hypothesis that asserts that countries that depend on the rentier economy have specific advantages that make them unlikely to become a democratic environment with a high level of transparency and social justice, and to build a strong educational system. Keywords: Rentier economy, human security, democracy, development, societal security.