Person:

Bates, Robert

Recent micro-level studies of rural communities in the developing areas address themselves to three basic issues: (1) What are the major external forces that determine the welfare of persons residing in rural areas? (2) How do peasants respond to these forces? (3) What ethical evaluations are to be made of the outcome of the encounter between peasant communities and the forces intruding upon them from their environment? By addressing these questions, and by formulating and utilizing explicit models of peasant behavior, these studies provide a coherent approach to the study of the developing areas.

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.

This article proposes a model representing the relationship between economic actors and revenue seeking governments. Given a need for revenues, the model predicts the allocation of the new tax burden and patterns of control over public policy. The model is motivated by the history of the rise of parliaments in Western Europe. It is extended to urban and developmental politics. It is designed to employ the techniques of "neo-classical" economics to explore themes which have been developed most clearly in Marxist writings. Most importantly, the model suggests the way in which, given a need for revenues, specific fractions of the private sector can gain control over public policy. And it characterizes precisely the factors which yield differences in the ability of economic agents to employ the market to defect from the tax-levying state. The analysis thus gives insight into both the origins and the limitations of political democracy.

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.

Next to oil, coffee is the most valuable commodity traded in world markets; it is produced in the developing world and consumed within the developed nations. Moreover, the International Coffee Agreement is the major successful international commodity agreement. In this research note we analyze the allocation of quotas to export coffee in 1982 under the terms of the agreement. The way in which entitlements to export are allocated offers insights into significant features of the international political economy.