Rural Unrest Research Articles

RURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP- 'AN ANSWER TO REMOVAL OF RURAL POVERTY IN INDIA, BY INCLUSION OF WOMEN AND YOUTH

Rural entrepreneurship and rural development is linked to each other in away proving to be mutually inclusive. Those Individuals or institutions aggrandizing rural development see entrepreneurship as a strategic development tool that accelerates the process of rural development.In the minds of developmental agencies the rural entrepreneurships creates lots of employment opportunities particular to rural youth and women.The politicians see it as a strategic key to prevent rural unrest,for farmers it acts as an instrument for enhancing their farm incomes. Women perceive it as a great opportunity to attain self-empowerment, financial autonomy and independence, to all these groups in one way or the other rural entrepreneurship stands as a vehicle to improve the quality of life for individuals,families and communities and to sustain a healthy economy and environment.

Was the Green Revolution intended to maximise food production?

ABSTRACTThe evidence on yields, food-production, food-calories per capita, and declining levels of malnutrition in countries experiencing a Green Revolution are commonly cited in support of the claim that the GR sought to maximise food production. If one looks closely at the actual design of GR programmes (in India and elsewhere), however, it is clear that they were instead intended to boost yields and profitability in a small number of targeted areas. The underlying rationale for targeting was that achieving very high yields in such regions would persuade farmers to abandon subsistence farming in favour of commercial production, relying upon the market for the purchase of inputs as well as the sale of produce. In response to widespread criticism of the Green Revolution ca. 1970 for neglecting the needs of peasant farmers (as well as accentuating rural unrest), the World Bank and other donors began to direct more attention and resources to smallholders, but the aim of commercialising farming remained unchanged.

The Colour of Hope: The Legacy of the ‘Green Cadres’ and the Problem of Rural Unrest in the First Czechoslovak Republic

This article addresses the divided memory and contested meaning of the Great War in interwar Czechoslovakia. Focusing on the legacy of a loose and short-lived movement of army deserters called ‘Green Cadres’ that appeared in 1918, it suggests that the Czechoslovak nation building project faced challenges not only from sizable ethnic minorities within the fledgling state, but also from the restive Czech peasantry. As elsewhere in East Central Europe, many peasants regarded the Green Cadres as liberators and representatives of a more radical, rural oriented national revolution. These unfulfilled hopes resonated through the interwar period. This article thus sheds light on an important social and cultural fault line that has been neglected in histories of the world wars in Europe.

Strikes and Rural Unrest during the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1936): A Geographic Approach

This article analyses the evolution and geographic distribution of the rural unrest that prevailed during the years of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1936), a period characterised by political instability and social conflict. The number of provincial strikes recorded in the forestry and agricultural industries and complied by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare constitute the primary source of the study. Based on this information, maps of the regional and provincial distribution of the agricultural unrest have been created for the republican period. The results reveal that, contrary to the traditional belief which confines the rural unrest of this period to the geographic areas of the latifundios (large estates), Spanish agriculture, in all its diversity, was hit by collective disputes. Although the areas of the latifundios were most affected by the agricultural reform of 1932, the data show that the extension of the unrest in the Spanish countryside was also the result of the refusal of the landowners to accept and apply the new republican collective bargaining agreement. The number of strikes increased during the period 1931–1933, fell between 1934 and 1935, and increased again during the months of the Popular Front (February to July 1936).

The Empirical Perspectives on Rural Entrepreneurship Development in India

This paper aims at appreciating the need for and relevance of Entrepreneurial perspectives at the grass root level in the context of Indian economy. These days rural entrepreneurship is seen as the largest force in the development of the rural areas. Infect, many of the developing countries in the world have use the concept of rural entrepreneurship as a very successful method of deterring rural unrest. Entrepreneurial, orientation to rural development is based on stimulating local entrepreneurial talent and subsequent growth of indigenous companies. In this context, an entrepreneurial perspective as a strategic development intervention for the rural India is of great interest for the government and researchers in the country as a means to enhance the socio-economic well-being of the rural people especially the educated and unemployed rural youths. This paper attempts to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about rural entrepreneurship which exists rather in piecemeal form and attempts to broaden the awareness by presenting the conceptual frame of the prevailing philosophy of rural Entrepreneurism and Rural entrepreneurship development efforts in the Indian Perspective. This will enable the people concerned to capture a holistic perspective about the entrepreneurial practices, the status of rural entrepreneurship development in India, the present initiative in the form of rural entrepreneurship development schemes and programmes and institutional network development for rural entrepreneurship development.

Urbanising the Rural: Reflections on India's National Rurban Mission

AbstractIndia's development trajectory is marked by growing economic prosperity but high inequality, which often exacerbates the existing rural–urban divide. One of the current policy instruments to address this divide is the National Rurban Mission, which aims to improve infrastructure and service provision, facilitate regional development and attract investment in rural areas. Against the backdrop of growing rural unrest on one hand and emerging evidence of unsustainable development in the urban on the other, we examine the National Rural Mission and its discursive underpinnings. We find that while the mission and its stated aims are a promising step to improve regional development, its focus on ‘smart villages’ and seeing urbanisation as the only development model, undermines the strengths and challenges in rural India. We highlight ways in which the mission can avoid some past pitfalls of development interventions in India while strengthening its mandate of facilitating inclusive regional development.

Mobilising for land, nation and class interests: agrarian agitation in Finland and Ireland, 1879–1918

AbstractThis article explores the comparative history of land agitation and how it evolved and intersected with nationalism and socialism in Finland and Ireland between the Irish Land War and the Finnish Civil War of 1918. Drawing on current scholarship as well as contemporary newspapers and official records, the article shows that an organised land movement developed later and was markedly less violent in Finland than in Ireland. Moreover, while in Ireland the association of landlordism with British rule helped to fuse the land movement with nationalist mobilisation during the Land War, in Finland the tie between the land movement and nationalism remained weak. This was a consequence of Finnish nationalists’ strong affiliation with landowning farmers, which hindered their success in mobilising tenant farmers and agricultural workers. Consequently, the Finnish countryside witnessed a remarkable rise in the socialist movement in the early 1900s. The socialist leanings of the Finnish land movement were greatly influenced by the Russian revolutions, whereas in Ireland militant Fenianism, often emanating from Irish America, affected land agitation more than socialism. As to transnational exchanges, the article also indicates the influence of Irish rural unrest and the related land acts on Finnish public debates and legislation.

Land Inequality and Rural Unrest

What is the relationship between landholding inequality and rural unrest? And why does land reform that ostensibly addresses rural grievances sometimes exacerbate unrest? We advance the understanding of these longstanding questions by shifting the emphasis from how landholding inequality fuels rural grievances to how it captures the collective action capacity of landowners. Using municipal-level data from Brazil’s large land reform program from 1988 to 2013, we demonstrate that the relationship between landholding inequality and unrest is conditional. Isolated threats to landed elites in the form of land invasions are difficult to repel, generating a positive relationship between landholding inequality and one-off land invasions. By contrast, sustained, broader local threats triggered by nearby land reforms catalyze landowner organization to repel land invasions, leading to the reverse relationship. The findings provide a novel answer for why a straightforward link between land inequality and rural unrest is elusive and may generalize to a broad range of similar cases.

Authoritarian Survival and Poverty Traps: Land Reform in Mexico

Summary Why do governments in underdeveloped countries pursue policies that undercut long-term economic growth? Focusing on Mexico’s massive but inefficient land reform, we argue that governments do so to underpin political survival. Using a panel dataset of Mexican states from 1917 to 1992, we find that land distribution was higher during election years and where the threat of rural unrest was greater. Furthermore, PRI support eroded more slowly in states receiving more reform. The program, which carried restrictive property rights, thus served the PRI regime’s electoral interests. But while land distribution generated a loyal political clientele, it generated steep costs – lower long-term economic growth.

Balancing act: Economic incentives, administrative restrictions, and urban land expansion in China

We examine how the system of “federalism, Chinese style” functions in the context of land allocation. China's land laws give provision of land a central role in local officials' growth promotion strategies. Requisitions of farmland by local authorities have engendered significant rural unrest. In response, the central government has attempted to re-establish control over the pace of urban land expansion by enacting regulations limiting conversion of rural land to urban uses. We derive theoretically the conditions under which non-compliance with such regulations is optimal. An econometric investigation shows that legal restrictions on farmland conversion had little or no effect on rates of farmland loss but did limit urban spatial growth. Our econometric evidence is consistent with limited enforcement of those legal limits on farmland conversion.

British Rule and Tribal Revolts in India: The curious case of Bastar

AbstractBritish colonial rule in India precipitated a period of intense rebellion among the country's indigenous groups. Most tribal conflicts occurred in the British provinces, and many historians have documented how a host of colonial policies gave rise to widespread rural unrest and violence. In the post-independence period, many of the colonial-era policies that had caused revolt were not reformed, and tribal conflict continued in the form of the Naxalite insurgency. This article considers why the princely state of Bastar has continuously been a major centre of tribal conflict in India. Why has this small and remote kingdom, which never came under direct British rule, suffered so much bloodshed? Using extensive archival material, this article highlights two key findings: first, that Bastar experienced high levels of British intervention during the colonial period, which constituted the primary cause of tribal violence in the state; and second, that the post-independence Indian government has not reformed colonial policies in this region, ensuring a continuation and escalation of tribal conflict through the modern Naxalite movement.

Burton Richard Miller. Rural Unrest during the First Russian Revolution: Kursk Province, 1905–1906.

Burton Richard Miller. Rural Unrest during the First Russian Revolution: Kursk Province, 1905–1906.

Rural Unrest during the First Russian Revolution: Kursk Province, 1905-1906. By Burton Richard Miller. Historical Studies in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, vol. 1. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2013. xvi, 448 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Tables. Maps. $60.00, hard bound.

Rural Unrest during the First Russian Revolution: Kursk Province, 1905-1906. By Burton Richard Miller. Historical Studies in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, vol. 1. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2013. xvi, 448 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Tables. Maps. $60.00, hard bound. - Volume 74 Issue 3

Authorizing the “Natives”: Governmentality, Dispossession, and the Contradictions of Rule in Colonial Zambia

British colonial rule in Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries straddled a contradiction between promoting radical social transformation and maintaining political order. This article explores the relationship between changing techniques of rule and the stability of rule; in particular, the proletarianization and dispossession of African populations and production of an extractive economy in colonial Zambia. The 1920s saw the transition from charter rule by the British South Africa Company to the Colonial Office and the end of widespread rural unrest. Using archival and secondary sources, two key interventions marked a new mode of governing and spatial reorganization of power are examined: indirect rule through Native authorities and the constitution of Native reserves. These interventions sought to rework the political landscape and align relations between men and things in ways that furthered the aims of both extractive capitalism and colonial rule. The consequences and limitations of these new forms of intervention are examined by bringing together Marxist ideas of dispossession and the contradictions of colonial rule and Foucault's work on governmental power. In the final sections, a wider set of relations and processes beyond the state that worked to produce economic forms of subjectivity are explored, before arguing that the hallmark of techniques of rule that became widespread in British colonial sub-Saharan Africa is that they stabilized dispossession and worked to resolve central contradictions of colonial rule.

A History of Malawi, 1859-1966 by John McCracken

Reviewed by: A History of Malawi, 1859-1966 by John McCracken Joey Power John McCracken , A History of Malawi, 1859-1966. Woodbridge: James Currey and Rochester NY: Boydell and Brewer (hb £85 - 978 1 84701 050 6). 2012, 485 pp. Inspired by John Iliffe's A Modern History of Tanganyika, John McCracken's long-awaited History of Malawi is the first attempt to write a comprehensive synthesis of the modern history of this small but significant Central African country since the 'nation-building' histories of the 1970s. The book weighs in at a whopping 485 pages, covers considerable thematic and chronological ground (its dates are 1859-1966) and integrates a prodigious amount of primary and second material to produce a very readable survey of Malawi's colonial past. The book is divided into sixteen chapters, beginning with the tumultuous nineteenth century and the advent of European missionary enterprise in the region. Subsequent chapters establish the background to the colonial economy and the central roles played by both Islam and Christianity in forging new types of identity and, sometimes, unique forms of political action. There is an entire chapter, for example, that revisits the Chilembwe rising and its significance for Malawian history, with particular emphasis on its millenarian overtones. There are also chapters on the First World War and on the crucial inter-war years [End Page 517] during which economic patterns were established that would endure well into the post-war period -and were to have political significance as land hunger and agrarian reform efforts became the catalysts for rural unrest. Chapters follow on the Depression and how this led to the delay of development initiatives. The book also includes a re-examination of the role of various officials whose development and 'agrarian reform' efforts stoked rural resistance to colonial and ultimately federal overrule. There are thematic chapters on the urban experience, the establishment of colonial administration and the relationship between town and country. The second half of the book is devoted to the years after 1945 during which Malawi's peoples faced one of their greatest political challenges - white settler nationalism and the resulting imposition of the Central African Federation. Opposition to this arguably led to the formation of independent Malawi and a particular brand of politics that, in its focus on the need for unity to achieve national liberation, eventually contributed to the emergence of a one-party state. McCracken touches on the development of party and popular politics, the role of violence in political change, and on the impact of the 1959 State of Emergency on reshaping African resistance to colonial rule. He surveys the trajectory of Malawi's incipient and then aborted labour movement, and the emergence of different factions within the Malawi Congress Party that would ultimately drive post-colonial politics. He does a commendable job of merging archival sources with a growing body of secondary literature on this period and provides considerable insight into the interplay between British and Malawian actors in bringing about a negotiated independence. The book culminates, quite rightly, not with the raising of the flag on 6 July 1964 but with the denouement following the 1964 cabinet crisis and Chipembere's failed rebellion of 1965. McCracken argues that one cannot help but draw parallels between the latter and the Chilembwe revolt of some fifty years before, not just because both rebellions failed but also in the light of their legacies. Each led to new alliances and political and economic power groupings that would endure - in the latter case, until challenged again in the early 1990s. John McCracken has provided a masterful survey of Malawi's modern past, encompassing political, economic and socio-cultural perspectives. A History of Malawi is bound to become the go-to text for students and scholars of colonial Malawi and those interested in the foundations of the post-colonial period. It is sure to have considerable local appeal (one hopes future editions will be more affordable), and must surely become a standard reference for those interested in Malawi's modern history, politics and economics. Joey Power Ryerson University jpower@history.ryerson.ca Copyright © 2013 International African Institute

Authoritarian Survival and Poverty Traps: Land Reform in Mexico

This paper examines why governments in underdeveloped countries systematically pursue policies that prevent long-term economic growth. Focusing on the design and implementation of Mexico's massive land redistribution program, we argue that governments do so to improve their chances of political survival. Mexico’s incumbent PRI regime gave peasants communal property under a restrictive and inefficient property rights regime. This form of land reform created dependence upon the regime for survival. We find empirical support for this hypothesis using data from a panel of Mexican states from 1917-1992. Land distribution was higher during election years and where the threat of rural unrest was greater. We also show that economic growth and modernization eroded PRI support over the long term, and, further, that PRI support eroded more slowly in states receiving greater levels of land. Inefficient land redistribution therefore served the PRI’s electoral interests, generating a loyal political clientele; and it contributed to political stability. Nonetheless, this policy carried steep costs: land reform substantially depressed long-term economic growth. These findings hold across various model specifications and instrumental variables estimation.

LAND AND URBAN ECONOMIC GROWTH IN CHINA*

ABSTRACT Land to accommodate urban development in China is provided through requisitions by government officials, suggesting that land availability may be a constraint on urban economic growth. An econometric model of urban GDP growth suggests that land has constrained economic growth in coastal areas but not elsewhere. Elasticities calculated from the estimated coefficients indicate that land availability has a larger proportional impact on economic growth than domestic and foreign investment, labor supply, and government spending. The estimated parameters provide evidence about arbitrage opportunities created by discrepancies between urban land value and compensation for requisitioned rural land, suggesting rural unrest associated with conversion of farmland to urban uses may have some economic roots.

State Capacity and Support for Village Institutions in Rural Shaanxi

For successful political reforms, such as village elections or elimination of arbitrary fees, the central party-government must have the political capacity to implement new laws down to the village level. Thus for researchers as well as government officials, it is important to have accurate measures of reform success or failure. There are two equally important measures that are closely tied to state capacity. One measure is the top—down level of commitment that county and township officials have towards implementing reforms. That is, whether these new institutions exist and function at the village level. The second measure is the bottom—up villager evaluation of local institutional procedures and cadre behavior. Using data collected in one northwest province in 2000 and 2004, findings show that implementation of some reforms, such as village elections, is uneven, while other reforms, such as the 2002 tax-fee reforms, were more successful. There are two implications from this study. One is that the central party-government lacks the commitment rather than the capacity to fully implement village elections. The urgency of relieving villagers’ tax-fee burdens that were perceived as the source of rural unrest and instability was more important than the development of village elections. Second, in villages where the reforms are fully implemented, villagers make a clear conceptual distinction between popular support for the elected leaders and the election process. That is, they display disgust for the elected leaders and support for the election process and the village fee system. However, in villages where reforms are not fully carried out, villagers exhibit a more uniform lack of support for leaders and local institutions.

“Only united can we escape certain ruin”: Rural Protest at the Close of the Weimar Republic

AbstractThe level of rural unrest in the late Weimar Republic was much higher than has previously been assumed and did not simply decline after peaking in 1928. The agricultural crisis and Great Depression triggered a second wave of protest in the northern German countryside that continued from the autumn of 1931 until early 1933. Banding together, farmers established organisations to prevent compulsory tax and debt collection, and thwarted bailiffs and bidders at confiscations and compulsory auctions of farms and farm property with demonstrations, boycott measures and violence. The article focuses on these developments in Germany's northernmost province, Schleswig-Holstein, but also presents evidence revealing that the level of rural unrest has almost certainly been underestimated in other regions as well. The rural protest of this period was particularly significant for the involvement of parties of both political extremes which sought to win farmers' approval. Ultimately it was the Nazi Party that successfully exploited the second wave of rural unrest to promote its dynamic and activist profile and secure support in the countryside.

China Since Tiananmen: Rural Protest

Abstract: Although China's farmers did not play a large role in the 1989 protests, they have been quite contentious since. Rural unrest has been triggered in part by reforms and in part by savvy "peasant leaders" who quickly seize opportunities that appear. Recently, many protest leaders have concluded that tame forms of contention are ineffective and that violence and other attention-grabbing tactics are needed. But is rural China about to explode? Not likely. The organization of contention remains low, claims tend to be circumscribed, and incidents are usually small-scale and local. Protest can deflect extraction and send unpopular cadres packing, but there is little evidence that it poses a threat to the regime. That Beijing tolerates so much unrest may even be an indicator of its confidence. Should it begin to treat farmers' grievances like those of Tibetans or Falun Gong supporters, then we will know that the leadership is shaken and the regime is weakening.