3.

Moderate Reformism introduced by the national governments anxious to garner peasant support and maintain political tranquility Rising rural literacy rates or, especially, the abolition of literacy requirements for voting has enfranchised a growing number of peasants, creating a large voting bloc supporting rural reform

DEMOCRACY AND RURAL REFORM

For decades, Third World development policies have emphasized industrial growth and urban modernization often to the detriment of the rural sector. The consequences have been stagnant agricultural production, growing food imports, rural poverty, heavy rural-urban migration and proletarianization of peasants. Most far-reaching land reforms were implemented by revolutionary regimes rather than democratic governments. At present democratic countries, landlords have formed powerful interest groups and have become influential in a number of major political parties, enabling them to block meaningful reform. Since 2002, substantial increase in food prices caused extensive malnutrition in many LDCs and gave rise to food riots and other forms of violent unrest. To resolve this, efforts are made by private and international institutions. However, respected NGOs such as Oxfam International had the following criticisms for these efforts: inadequacy of $20 billion poor records of pledges of G8 countries government corruption in the Third World bias on political connections of foreign assistance

LIMITS OF AGRARIAN REFORM

1. Less than one-third of rural families in need received any land. Most beneficiaries found that their added land was insufficient to alleviate their deep poverty. 2. As in most LDCs, the nations economic structure has favored the urban population over the peasantry. 3. Most agrarian reform programs exist in name only. 4. Revolutionary agrarian reforms have limitations as well. * Each nations agrarian-reform package must be carefully designed to meet its own specific needs.

OTHER APPROACHES AND ISSUES

1. Crop Pricing Price controls are imposed by many governments to ensure a supply of cheap food for the urban population. By holding crop prices below the free-market levels, these controls have further impoverished peasant . Lifting price controls leads to sharply higher prices of basic foods. Consequently, when officials remove them, often in response to external pressures from IMF or WB, they often face protests or even riots by irate, urban consumers. 2. Integrated Rural Development This involves some combination of technical assistance for farmers, greater peasant access to credit, better access to markets, improved irrigation, creation of alternative sources of income, improved educational opportunities and better health care. A manifestation of this approach is the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

AGRARIAN REFORM AND THE POLITICS OF RURAL CHANGE

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REFERENCE Handelman, H. (2010). Challenge of Third World Development: International Edition. New Jersey, United States: Pearson Education.

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International Aspects of Philippine and Third World Development

espite the substantial urbanization in recent decades, rural residents still constitute close to 60% of the Third World population. Unfortunately, it is in the countryside where some of the worst aspects of political and economic underdevelopment prevail. Wide urban-rural gaps persist in literacy, health care, and life expectancy. The most difficult and important challenges facing most developing nations: 1. Resolving the political and economic tensions between urban and rural areas 2. Reducing the vast inequalities within the countryside

Cultural values stressing caution and conservatism may further constrain peasant political behavior. This is because peasants typically are wary of radical change and respectful of community traditions. To some extent, this conservatism reflects a suspicion of outside valuesdistrust frequently grounded in religious beliefs and other longstanding traditions. However, when peasants feel that their way of life is threatened, they will resist change or at least try to channel it into forms more beneficial to their interests. How effectively they engage in collective political action and how radical or moderate their demands are depend on a number of factors: 1. The extent to which they perceive themselves to be exploited 2. How desperate their economic condition is 3. The degree of internal cohesion and cooperation within their communities 4. Their ability to form political linkages with peasants in neighboring villages or in other parts of the country 5. The extent to which they forge political ties with non-peasant groups 6. The type of outside groups with whom they ally 7. The responsiveness of the political system to their demands 8. The types of political actions that the political order affords them Whatever their political inclinations, the peasants economic and political concerns usually revolve around four broad issues: 1. The price they receive for their crops 2. Consumer prices of goods they buy 3. Taxes 4. Availability of land * The issue of land has been the most volatile and the most critical to the political stability of many Third World nations.

THE CASE FOR AGRARIAN REFORM

Given the powerful interests opposing land redistribution, supporters of agrarian reform have needed to defend their objectives on several grounds. 1. Social Justice and Equity 2. Political Stability 3. Productivity 4. Economic Growth 5. Environmental Preservation

TYPES OF AGRARIAN REFORM

1. Externally Imposed Reform implemented after foreign occupation or pressure Ex. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea (East Asia) 3 Unique Conditions of East Asia that Contributed to the Success of Externally Imposed Reform: a. Depth of American commitment to reform b. The enormous pressure that the United States could exert on those East Asian governments c. Landowning elites in these countries were so weakened at the end of World War II that they were ill-equipped to defend their own interests 2. Revolutionary Transformation resulted from peasant-based revolutions While revolutionary reforms are generally more farreaching than any of the other approaches, peasants have frequently been bitterly disappointed by the way the government organized the new agricultural units. Rather than break up the old landed estates and distribute the small plots directly to needy peasants (East Asian model), most Marxist regimes created large collective or cooperative farms dominated by the state Factors that Convinced Various Communist Regimes to Introduce Collective Farming: a. A means of controlling the kind of crops that peasants grew and what they were paid for them b. A means of controlling the peasants individualistic impulses and reorienting them toward the public good c. A means to facilitate government delivery of social service (myth)

RURAL CLASS STRUCTURES

I. At the apex of the rural class system stand the large and powerful landowners, sometimes known as the oligarchy. II. On the rung beneath the landed elite, we find midsized landlords and more affluent peasants (sometimes called kulaksconsists of peasants who, unlike small landlords, still work on the land themselves; unlike small landlords, kulaks can afford to hire additional peasant labor to work with them). III. At the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, the rural poorincluding peasants who own small plots of land, tenant farmers, and farmworkers are generally the Third Worlds most impoverished and powerless occupational group. We may further subdivide poor peasants into two subgroups: 1. Those who own small amounts of land for family cultivation (smallholders) 2. Those who are landlesstenant farmers and farm wage laborers * These categories are not mutually exclusive

PEASANT POLITICS
Despite their vast numbers, peasants often play a muted role in Third World politics. The peasantrys political leverage is limited by poverty, lack of education, dependence on outsiders, and physical isolation from the centers of national power and from peasants elsewhere in the country.

POLITICS OF AGRARIAN REFORM

Agrarian reform typically involves redistribution of farmland from landlords to landless peasants or to smallholders who need more land to support their families. In other instances, it entails distribution of public property, including previously uncultivated lands. Successful reforms require government credit, technical assistance, and improved access to markets.