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Agrarian Reform in Historical Perspective Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Elias H. Tuma
Elias H. Tuma
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Extract

Introduction

Programs of agrarian reform have continued to be used either to bring about change or sometimes to slow it down, depending on whether such programs were introduced after a major upheaval in society or as a preventive against it. Economic development and modernization have been used as justifications for introducing reform programs, on the assumption that reform facilitates these processes, but the actual contribution of reform to development and modernization is not obvious nor easily measured because of the variety of approaches utilized in evaluating the effects. Furthermore, only the rudiments of a theory of agrarian reform have been formulated in the literature. To a large extent, agrarian reform programs have been pragmatically oriented, aimed at short-term political goals, or viewed as problem-solving mechanisms in the day-to-day affairs of the state. One may go farther by suggesting that reform programs have often been used to inhibit change. In that role reform serves as a pacifier, and only minimum change would be brought about—just enough to avoid an upheaval or to stabilize the relations between reformers and potential beneficiaries. By the time such a weakness, if it may be considered that, has been discovered, another potion of reform would be introduced to keep the lid on the dormant restlessness of its potential beneficiaries.

Type
The Effects of Reform
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 1979 , pp. 3 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1979

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References

1 Wilkie, James W., Measuring Land Reform (UCLA Latin American Center, 1975), mimeo.Google Scholar; Jacoby, Erich, Evaluation of Agrarian Structures and Agrarian Reform Programs (FAO, Rome: 1966)Google Scholar; Tuma, E. H., Twenty-six Centuries of Agrarian Reform (University of California Press, 1965)Google Scholar; ‘Harmony and Conflict in Agrarian Reform,’ America Latina, 4 (1969), 115–33Google Scholar; Voelkner, H. and French, J. T., A Dynamic Model for Land Reform Analysis and Public Policy Formation (Washington AID, 1970).Google Scholar

2 Schickele, Rainer, ‘Theories Concerning Land Reform,’ J. of Farm Economics, XXXIV (1952), 734–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tuma, E. H., Twenty-six Centuries, Ch. 14.Google Scholar

3 This is the definition developed in my Twenty-six Centuries, p. 14.Google Scholar

4 This microapproach to reform evaluation is consistent with Wilkie's approach cited in note 1, at least on the level of application; in theory, no aspect of the agrarian structure can be insulated from change occurring in other aspects.

5 An earlier version has appeared in my ‘Land Reform and Tenure,’ Encylopaedia Britannica,v. 10 (1974), pp. 634–42.Google Scholar

6 Other proxy expressions may be devised, according to the time and place as well as the culture of the society in which the reform has taken place.

7 It is not difficult to diagnose such symptoms in the rural sectors of various underdeveloped countries, whose expectations have often been repulsed. The politicization of reform is an expression of this subjective approach to reform; Karin Dovring's article is a classic in recognizing the ideological and subjective role of reform, in Dovring, Folke, Land and Labor in Europe, 3rd ed. (The Hague: Martinus Niijoff, 1965), pp. 278–375.Google Scholar

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12 Society in this case may be the nation, economy, or polity at large, or it may be a region within the larger society.

13 An extensive bibliography, too long to include, will be available upon request from the author. In addition, the following items have been of special relevance: Augustini, Günter, ‘Agrarian Reform in China: Objectives, Approach and Achievements,’ Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives, 1974/75, pp. 26–42Google Scholar; Bagley, F. R. C., ‘A Bright Future After Oil: Dams and Agro-Industry in Khuzistan,’ Middle East Journal, 30:1 (Winter 1976), 25–35Google Scholar; CENCIRA, ‘The Agricultural Society of Social Interest (SAIS) in Peru,’ FAO, Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives, 2 (1973), 3–47Google Scholar; El-Ghonemy, M.Riad, ‘Integrated Rural Development,’Twelfth FAO Regional Conferencefor the Near East, Amman,1974Google Scholar; Haider, Agha Sajjad and Kuhnen, Frithjof, ‘Land Tenure and Rural Development in Pakistan,’ Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives, 1974/75, pp. 52–65Google Scholar; Hinnebusch, R. A., ‘Local Politics in Syria: Organization and Mobilization in Four Villages,’ Middle East Journal, 30:1 (Winter 1976), 1–24Google Scholar; Here, Barbara K., Land Reform in Kenya, AID Spring Review (June 1970)Google Scholar; Keilany, Ziad, ‘Socialism and Economic Change in Syria,’ Middle Eastern Studies, 9:1 (01 1973), 61–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Khatibi, Nosratollah, ‘Land Reform and Its Role in Rural Development,’ Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives, 2 (1972), pp. 61–68Google Scholar; Saco, A., ‘In Peru Land is Restored to the Indians,’ Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives, 1 (1971), 26–39Google Scholar; United Nations, Progress in Land Reform, Sixth Report (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

14 Presumably the most socialist or egalitarian reform outside China and Cuba is the Algerian one; yet Algeria's reform has been found to have had little real effect on the distribution or on the level of living of the peasantry. For tentative observations, Paul, James A., ‘Algeria's Oil Economy: Liberation or Neo-Colonialism?’ presented to the MESA Conference,Los Angeles,1976, mimeo.Google Scholar

15 The potential response to change in industry would come in any case and cannot be regarded as part of the reform process.

16 Present tension in Pakistan may belie the apparent decline of tension in the last few years.

17 Still most landless people in these reform countries aspire to that status.

18 World Bank Economic Atlas (Washington, D. C, 1975).Google Scholar

19 One might say that this result has come about because of the failure of industry to advance, but this does not reduce the relevance of the results.

20 Moghaddam, Reza, ‘Land Reform and Rural Development in Iran,’ Land Economics, 48:2 (05 1972), 162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Frievalds, J., ‘Farm Corporations: An Alternative to Traditional Agriculture,’ Middle East Journal, 26:2 (Spring 1972), 185–93Google Scholar; F. R. C. Bagley, op. cit.

22 Ministry of Cooperative and Rural Affairs, ‘On the Establishment and Operation of Farm Corporations’ (August 1972).

23 Rabbani, M., ‘A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Dez Multi-Purpose Project,‘ Tahqiqate Eqtesadi, 8: 23-24 (Summer 1971), 132–55.Google Scholar

24 Gotsch, Carl H., ‘Tractor Mechanization and Rural Development in Pakistan,’ International Labour Review, 107:2 (02 1973).Google Scholar