Currently the strategy for promoting internal peace favoured by the international community is to promote democracy, the rationale being that democratic accountability lowers incentives for rebellion. We argue that democracy also constrains the technical possibilities of government repression, and that this makes rebellion easier. Although the net effect of democracy is therefore ambiguous, we suggest that the higher is income the more likely is it to be favourable. Empirically, we find that whereas in rich countries democracy makes countries safer, below an income threshold democracy increases proneness to political violence. We show that these results hold for a wide variety of forms of political violence.