ABSTRACT
The results of this study support strongly the central hypothesis about the positive correlation between the degree of resource distribution and the level of democratization. The best combination of explanatory variables (IPR) explaines 72 percent of the variation in ID-2001 and the two other combinations (IPR-2 and Mean) 53 and 65 percent respectively. The degree of explanation can be regarded as extremely high considering the fact that many other factors affect the variation in democratization, too. In the case of IPR, the impact of those other factors seems to be less than 30 percent. Those other factors include measurement errors, historical legacies, external influences, cultural differences, and various local and accidental factors (cf. Schmidt 2000: 446-60). It should be noted that the universal variables used in this study do not take into account all aspects of politically relevant resource distribution. There are certainly important local factors which affect the distribution of politically relevant power resources. Besides, some part of the variation in the measures of democracy is always due to measurement errors, institutional differences, and unpredictable random factors. Therefore, the real relationship between democracy and resource distribution may be even stronger than my variables indicate.
