title: More heat, less light! The resource curse & HIV/AIDS: A reply to Olivier Sterck.
abstract: We reported fairly robust results suggesting that resource rich countries did less well containing HIV/AIDS than resource poor states (de Soysa and Gizelis, 2013). We argued that public action to prevent the spread of disease was going to be weaker in resource rich states because rulers would have less incentive to fight disease. Olivier Sterck (this issue) criticizes our study on several grounds, arguing that resource rich states can provide anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and thereby fight the AIDS epidemic. He, however, finds no relationship between resource wealth and HIV/AIDS. We argue that his reanalyses do not fully address the theoretical association between resource wealth and the spread of HIV/AIDS and that his argument about ART is more wishful than a realistic expectation. Future research should probe more carefully why resource wealth has not been deployed more effectively for fighting disease-a point we can all agree on.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway. Electronic address: indra.de.soysa@svt.ntnu.no.
authors.forename: Indra
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: de Soysa
authors.affiliation: Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom. Electronic address: tig@essex.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Ismene Theodora
authors.initials: IT
authors.lastname: Gizelis
mesh_terms: D014943:Global Health; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D010578:Petroleum / Q000600:supply & distribution*
chemical_list: D010578:Petroleum
keywords: Governance; HIV/AIDS; Natural resource curse