Agrarian Politics and Development

Rural insurrections in Third World nations transformed the study of agrarian politics into a recognized subfield of political development. They also discredited prevailing development theories and while rendering development studies a subfield of political economy. This essay reviews the major approaches to the study of agrarian politics. It emphasizes two major weaknesses: the assumption that development implies the demise of the rural sector and the inability of most "economic" approaches to incorporate institutional features of peasant societies, thereby creating a wasteful disjuncture between political economy and anthropology in the study of rural societies. The collective choice approach, it is argued, rectifies these weaknesses and generates a fruitful agenda for new research into the political economy of Third World nations

Lessons from History, or the Perfidy of English Exceptionalism and the Significance of Historical France

Theories of development are derived from readings of history. Modern historical research challenges many of the basic beliefs about how economies develop. More specifically, recent research suggests that the lessons drawn from the history of industrialization in England are highly misleading. The article thus challenges the empirical foundations for much of classical and Marxian development theory.African and African American StudiesGovernmen

Some Conventional Orthodoxies in the Study of Agrarian Change

The paper presents a critical review of two major approaches to the analysis of agrarian societies in light of evidence taken from the scholarly literature on Africa. The first approach posits the existence of “natural” societies; the second, of “peasant” societies. The existence of such “precapitalist” societies is often invoked to account for patterns of change in contemporary rural societies. The author argues that these approaches are overly culturally and economically determined, and that they undervalue the importance of the state. Many of the so-called precapitalist features of these societies are themselves found to be products of the societies' encounter with agents of capitalism. Moreover, many result from the efforts of states to secure domination and control over rural populations.African and African American StudiesGovernmen

Political Reform

African and African American StudiesGovernmen

Democracy in Africa: A Very Short History

When discussing governance in Africa, one must be circumspect when applying the term "democracy." One reason for doing so is because the term is imprecise. However, while differing in the attributes they posit and the qualifications they impose, those who write of democracy join in emphasizing its essential property: that it is a form of government in which political power is employed to serve the interests of the public rather than of those who govern. And it is this attribute that I take as defining good governance. In this essay, I argue that democracy, in this sense, has been reborn in Africa. The evidence, I argue, strongly suggests that its renaissance has been accompanied by changes in public policies and political practices-ones that generate benefit for the people. But the evidence also suggests that political dangers remain: incumbent parties strive to suborn the electoral process and incumbent executives seek to prolong their terms in office. As elsewhere, to retain their political liberties, Africa's citizens must "remain vigilant."Paraphrasing John Adams at the Constitutional, Africa today may enjoy better governance, but "can [she] keep it."African and African American StudiesGovernmen

Rural Development in Kasumpa Village, Zambia

For many rural dwellers in Zambia, as well as elsewhere in Africa, the movement toward independence represented an attempted movement toward a higher standard of living. The displacement of the colonial authorities and the installation of an African government represented a shift from a public order whose primary interest was the maintenance of law and order in the rural areas to a government which had come to power by promising to fulfill the demands of the indigenous peoples that they be made better off. As a result of the commitments made in the bid for power, out of a regard for its future fate at the polls, and because of its genuine regard for the welfare of its citizens, the new Zambian government, like other governments in Africa, initiated programs designed to upgrade the standard of living of its basically rural constituents. Utilizing the revenues generated by the prosperous mining industry, the government constructed, staffed, and provisioned schools; hospitals, and clinics in the rural areas at a rate unprecedented in the history of the territory. And, of greater relevance to this study, it initiated programs designed to enhance the cash-earning opportunities of the villagers. Toward this end, the new government sponsored the growth of farming cooperatives and the formation of peasant farms in the rural areas, seeking thereby to share the benefits of independence by increasing the incomes of its rural citizens

Ethnicity

African and African American StudiesGovernmen

Trade-union membership in the copperbelt of Zambia : a test of some hypotheses

Cover title"1801"--handwritten on cover. -- Series statement handwritten on coverIncludes bibliographical reference

Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa

Geertz, Melson and Wolpe, Huntington and others have argued that modernization promotes potentially disintegrative forces in developing areas, and, in particular, often gives rise to powerful ethnic groupings. In this article, we elaborate this hypothesis in the context of the developing nations of black Africa. In so doing, we also attempt to demonstrate the relevance and usefulness to political scientists of the extensive work on modernization in Africa produced by students of related disciplines, and to draw from these studies evidence for our principal assertion: that in contemporary Africa, modernization and ethnic competition can and do co-vary

A Simulation Study of a Crisis in Southern Africa

African and African American StudiesGovernmen