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Current Studies of Peasants and Rural Development: Applications of the Political Economy Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Forrest D. Colburn
Forrest D. Colburn
Affiliation:
COI University
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Abstract

Much of the recent writing on peasants and rural development is based on a litical economy model. This approach, best exemplified by Samuel Popkin's The adtional Peasant, sees the peasant as a self-interested rational actor, and develops a unchaning investment logic to explain economic and political decisions. It is a more sophiticated approach than earlier attempts at applying a political economy model because it recognizes that income-maximization is not the exclusive means for self-improvement. Equally important, it also recognizes that, although individuals tend to be cient in their use of resources, problems of cooperation and organization often preview villages from being economically efficient. Although this type of research tends to as empirical as earlier, more anthropologically oriented work, it promises to be me helpful in building generalizable theory about peasants, and in aiding practitioners rural development.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , April 1982 , pp. 437 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1982

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References

1 Mellor, John, The Economics of Agricultural Development (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966), 23.Google Scholar

2 See Norman Nicholson, “Applications of Public Choice Theory to Rural Development—A Statement of the Problem” (Russell and Nicholson, 18).

3 Ibid., 19–20.

4 Wolf, Eric, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1969).Google Scholar

5 Ibid.; Migdal, Joel, Peasants, Politics and Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Scott, James, The Moral Economy of the Peasant (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

6 The free-rider problem is discussed in organization theory by, among others, Olson, Mancur Jr, in The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

7 Frohlich, Norman, Oppenheimer, Joe A., and Young, Oran R., Political Leadership and Collective Goods (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

8 Though in general Migdal's analysis (fn. 5) is consistent with that of Scott and Wolf, he and Popkin are in basic agreement on the way leaders build up political organizations.

9 Hirschman, , Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).Google Scholar