Wikipedia

Adrià Ardèvol

Joined 29 January 2016

I'm a student at Columbia University (New York, USA) and Sciences Po (Paris, FR) studying political science.

Main Research Interest: Peasants, Agrarian Societies, and the State

edit

Research question: how do agrarian communities interact with the state?

Main sources:

edit
Author Book Title Underlying Theory
James C. Scott The moral economy of the peasant: rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia [1] Moral Economy - Political Psychology
Samuel L. Popkin The rational peasant: the political economy of rural society in Vietnam [2] Political Economy

These two sources exemplify two main schools of thought that structure the academic discussion on the behavior of peasants and agrarian communities. James C. Scott highlights the importance of ethics, particularly community values based on on agrarian "subsistence ethic". For Scott, the problem is not really whether agrarian communities are oppressed, but whether the oppression violates the ethos of the community, built on years of subsistence in the face of adversity ("what is left" vs "how much is taken"). His approach is that of the moral economy. Popkin, on the other hand, stresses the political economy of the peasants. He believes that the individual rationality of self-interested individuals is more determinant than the diffuse norms and values advocated by Scott. He writes: "norms are malleable, renegotiated, and shifting in accord with considerations of power and strategic interactions among individuals. There are always tradeoffs between conflicting and inconsistent norms."[3]

My principal weakness so far is that my sources are a little outdated, and I would welcome guidance on new work in this subject.

In my research, I expect to be delving with the broader themes of collective action problems, impact of colonial regimes, transformation from pre-capitalist to market-based societies. Below is a proposed outline, a more ambitious (unfeasible?) option would be to do a spatio-temporal survey of peasant revolts.

Agrarian Communities: A Basic Framework --> Who are peasants and how do they live, work, interact with each other ?

edit

Peasant and Peasant Societies: Selected Readings (Theodor Shanin) [4]

Peasantry as a Political Factor (Theodor Shanin) [5]

Interpersonal Relations in Peasant Society (George Foster) [6]

The little community, and Peasant society and culture (Robert Redfield) [7]

The Theory of Peasant Economy (AV Chayanov) [8]

Making the Commons Work: Theory, Practice, and Policy (Ed. Daniel W. Bromley) [9]

Moral Economy School --> What are the ethics and informal norms that govern peasant society?

edit

Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (James C. Scott) [10]

Domination and the Art of Resistance : Hidden Transcripts (James C. Scott) [11]

Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century (E. P. Thompson) [12]

Political Economy School --> How do individual peasants maximize their utility?

edit

Allocation Efficiency in Traditional Indian Agriculture (David Hopper) [13]

Theory of the Optimizing Peasant (Michael Lipton) [14]

Capitalism and Agrarian Communities --> What is the impact of imposed market-based structures on peasant societies?

edit

Transforming Traditional Agriculture (Theodore W. Schultz) [15]

The Great Transformation : The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Karl Polyani) [16]

Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies (Robert H. Bates) [17]

State-Building and Agrarian Communities --> What is the role of peasant societies in creating and/or legitimizing a coercive "stationary bandit"?

edit

Democracy, Development, and the Countryside (Ashutoh Varshney) [18]

Peasants into Frenchmen (Eugen Weber) [19]

Art of Not Being Governed  : An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (James C. Scott) [20]

Peasant Revolts --> What happens if peasants are not happy with the stationary bandit?

edit

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: The Making of the Modern World (Barrington Moore, Jr) [21]

Primitive Rebels (Eric Hobswam) [22]

Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (Eric Wolf) [23]

Nighrwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes (Orin Starn) [24]

Impact on Development Politics --> How should we view peasant societies in poor countries today?

edit

The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (James Ferguson) [25]

Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Timothy Mitchell) [26]

Engineering Nature: Water, Development, & the Global Spread of American Environmental Expertise (Jessica B. Teisch)

World Development Report: Agriculture for Development (World Bank) [27]

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (James C. Scott) [28]

Notes

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Scott, James C. (1976). The moral economy of the peasant : rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300018622.
  2. ^ Popkin, Samuel L. (1979). The rational peasant : the political economy of rural society in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520035615.
  3. ^ Popkin 1979, p. 22.
  4. ^ Peasants and Peasant Societies: Selected Readings (2 ed.). Blackwell Pub. 1987-12-01. ISBN 9780631156192.
  5. ^ Shanin, Teodor (1966-03-01). "The Peasantry as a Political Factor". The Sociological Review. 14 (1): 5–10. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.1966.tb01148.x. ISSN 1467-954X.
  6. ^ Foster, George (1960). "Interpersonal Relations in Peasant Society". Human Organization. 19 (4): 174–178. doi:10.17730/humo.19.4.an12v2674201875x.
  7. ^ Redfield, Robert (1960). The Little Community, and Peasant society and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226706494.
  8. ^ The Theory of Peasant Economy (1 ed.). University of Wisconsin Press. 1986-11-15. ISBN 9780299105747.
  9. ^ Blomquist, William A. (1992-11-01). Bromley, Daniel W. (ed.). Making the Commons Work: Theory, Practice, and Policy. ICS Press. ISBN 9781558152175.
  10. ^ Scott, James C. (1987-09-10). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Reprint ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300036411.
  11. ^ Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (Revised ed.). Yale University Press. 1992-07-29. ISBN 9780300056693.
  12. ^ Thompson, E.P (1971). "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century". Past and Present. 50: 76–136. doi:10.1093/past/50.1.76.
  13. ^ Hopper, W. David (Aug 1965). "Allocation Efficiency in a Traditional Indian Agriculture". Journal of Farm Economics. 47 (3): 611–624. doi:10.2307/1236276. JSTOR 1236276.
  14. ^ Lipton, Michael (Aug 1968). "The Theory of the Optimizing Peasant". Journal of Development Studies.
  15. ^ Schultz, Theodore W. (1983-06-01). Transforming Traditional Agriculture. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226740751.
  16. ^ The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (2 ed.). Beacon Press. 2001-03-28. ISBN 9780807056431.
  17. ^ Bates, Robert H. (2014-04-12). Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies (First Edition, 1, Updated and Expanded with a New Preface ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 9780520282568.
  18. ^ Democracy, Development, and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998-09-18. ISBN 9780814402504.
  19. ^ Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (1 ed.). Stanford University Press. 1976-06-01. ISBN 9780804710138.
  20. ^ Scott, James C. (2010-11-30). The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300169171.
  21. ^ Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Reprint ed.). Beacon Press. 1993-09-01. ISBN 9780807050736.
  22. ^ Hobsbawm, Eric (1965-10-17). Primitive Rebels. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393003284.
  23. ^ Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (First ed.). University of Oklahoma Press. 1999-09-15. ISBN 9780806131962.
  24. ^ "Amazon.com: Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes (Latin America Otherwise) eBook: Orin Starn: Books". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 2016-03-07.
  25. ^ The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. University of Minnesota Press. 1994-02-01. ISBN 9780816624379.
  26. ^ Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. University of California Press. 2002-11-01. ISBN 9780520232624.
  27. ^ Bank, World (2007-01-01). World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. World Bank Publications. ISBN 9780821368091.
  28. ^ Scott, James C. (1999-02-08). Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300078152.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Adrià_Ardèvol&oldid=1023708686"