Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:27:24.157Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Land Reform and Agrarian Revolution in El Salvador: Comment on Seligson and Diskin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Jeffery M. Paige
Jeffery M. Paige*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The causes as well as the consequences of land reform are revolutionary. Land reform is not really reform at all. In an agrarian society, land reform is a revolutionary act because it redistributes the major source of wealth, social standing, and political power. Successful large-scale land reforms in Latin America and elsewhere occur only during social revolution or through the actions of invading armies imposing revolution from above. The land reforms in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Cuba, and Nicaragua occurred during revolutions; the land reforms in Japan and Taiwan were imposed by invading armies. The reform in South Korea apparently represented a combination of the two. Fundamental land reform without social transformation is a logical and practical impossibility. This is the reason why land reform as a counterrevolutionary strategy, such as the ill-fated “land-to-the-tiller” program attempted in Vietnam, is bound to fail.

Type
Commentary and Debate
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , 1996 , pp. 127 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by the University of Texas Press

References

Cabarrus, Carlos Rafael 1983 Génesis de una revolución: Análisis del surgimiento y desarrollo de la organización campesina en El Salvador. Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social.Google Scholar
Cumings, Bruce 1984 “The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy: Industrial Sectors, Product Cycles, and Political Consequences.” International Organization 38, no. 1 (Winter):1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diskin, Martin 1996 “Distilled Conclusions: The Disappearance of the Agrarian Question in El Salvador.” LARR 31, no. 1:.Google Scholar
Dunkerly, James 1988 Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Durham, William H. 1979 Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins of the Soccer War. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Eckstein, Susan 1982 “The Impact of Revolution on Social Welfare in Latin America.” Theory and Society, no. 11 (Jan.):43–94.Google Scholar
Montes, Segundo 1987 El compadrazgo, una estructura de poder en El Salvador. San Salvador: Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas.Google Scholar
Paige, Jeffery M. 1975 Agrarian Revolution: Export Agriculture and Social Movements in the Underdeveloped World. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Paige, Jeffery M. 1985 “Cotton and Revolution in Nicaragua.” In States versus Markets in the World System, edited by Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Stephens, Evelyne Huber, 91–116. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Paige, Jeffery M. 1993 “Coffee and Power in El Salvador.” LARR 28, no. 3:7–40.Google Scholar
Pearce, Jenny 1986 Promised Land: Peasant Rebellion in Chalatenago El Salvador. London: Latin American Bureau.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prosterman, Roy 1976 “TRI,' a Simplified Predictive Index of Rural Instability.” Comparative Politics 8, no. 3 (Apr.):339–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prosterman, Roy L., AND Riedinger, Jeffrey M. 1987 Land Reform and Democratic Development. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Saade De Saade, Cecilia Elizabeth, AND De Rosal, Evelyn Rivas 1983 “La concentración en la producción de café y las modificaciones inducidas por el proceso de la reforma agraria, período 1971–1982.” Tesis de Licenciada, Universidad Centromericana José Simeón Cañas.Google Scholar
Seligson, Mitchell 1995 “Thirty Years of Transformation in the Agrarian Structure of El Salvador.” LARR 30, no. 3:43–74.Google Scholar
Simon, Laurence R., AND Stephens, James C., JR. 1982 El Salvador Land Reform, 1980–1981: Impact Audit, with 1982 supplement by Diskin, Martin. Boston, Mass.: Oxfam America.Google Scholar
Wickham-Crowley, Timothy 1992 Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkie, James W., ED. 1993 Statistical Abstract of Latin America, Vol. 30, pt. 1. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications.Google Scholar
Williams, Robert G. 1986 Export Agriculture and the Crisis in Central America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Elizabeth Jean 1993 “Implementing the Peace in El Salvador: Agrarian Property Rights in the Aftermath of the Civil War.” In her manuscript “Rural Social Relations, Democracy, and Development in El Salvador: Agrarian Politics and the Negotiated Resolution of the Civil War in El Salvador.”Google Scholar