Irrigation Incompatible With Democracy

An in depth analysis shows that irrigated farming, measured not by actual irrigation, but by potential crop yields from irrigation, is a causal factor in authoritarian government structures.

Presumably, the theory is that the coordination of effort required to establish and manage irrigated agriculture requires centralized authority and that the easiest way to achieve such centralization is with an authoritarian government whose legitimacy flows from the value added by the irrigated farming system relative to the status quo. Rainfall based agriculture apparently does not empirically show such strong tendencies towards authoritarian government.