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Urbanization and Political Change: The Impact of Foreign Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Joel S. Migdal
Joel S. Migdal
Affiliation:
Harvard University and Tel-Aviv University
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Extract

With the continuing rapid growth of cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, social scientists have expected a clear shift of political power from rural to urban-based groups. The usual assumption is that this shift would stem from the process of urban economic growth which would lead to political centralization and political integration, both centered in the city. Such assumptions are found most explicitly in many ofthe theories of modernization developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Such theories were often derived from a so-called “Western” or European model.

Type
The Urban-Rural Connection
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1977 , pp. 328 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1977

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References

This is a much expanded and revised version of a paper presented at the Round Table on Political Integration, IPSA, Jerusalem, September, 1974. I would like to thank my many colleagues at Tel-Aviv University who commented on the paper and R. Marcia Migdal, Y. Porath, Mark Heller, Ariela Gottlieb, and Zipporah Kleinbaum for their useful suggestions. Also, I would like to thank the Tel Aviv University Social Science Research Fund for the grant which enabled me to undertake this research.

1 Note the growth rates in percentages of cities over 100,000 inhabitants in 1960–1970 in the following areas:

See Kingsley Davis, , World Urbanization 1950–1970, Volume I (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1969), pp. 141–160Google Scholar. In this paper, urbanization is taken to mean not only the movement from rural areas to cities, but also a change in behavior patterns (particularly, work patterns) conforming to those which are characteristic of city groups. See Meadows, Paul and Mizruchi, Ephraim (eds.), Urbanism, Urbanization, and Change (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1969), p. 2.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 72–78, on what he calls the “urban break through.”Google Scholar

3 “Centralization means that major functions of legal disputes, the collection of reve nue, the control of currency, military recruitment, the organization of the postal system and others have been removed from the political struggle in the sense that they cannot be parcelled out among competing jurisdictions or appropriated on an hereditary basis by privileged status-groups.” Bendix, Reinhard, “Centralization, the State, and Political Cleavage” in Lipset, Seymour M. and Bendix, Reinhard (eds.), Class, Status and Power (2nd ed.: New York: The Free Press, 1966), p. 81.Google Scholar

4 Political integration is viewed in this paper as a process (rather than an either-or situation) whereby increasing numbers of individuals participate in organizations and/or procedures of authoritative bodies. Among individuals it involves the cognitive element that those bodies are or are becoming the effective source of power and authority in their lives.

5 See, for example, Parsons, Talcott, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966).Google Scholar For a good critique, see Tipps, Dean C., “Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of Societies: A Critical Perspec tive,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 15 (03, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 It is unclear in many cases exactly what “Western” meant. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, deals with this problem in chapter 2, “ Political Moderniza tion: America vs. Europe.” Even within Europe, however, there were great differences. In Central and Eastern Europe, for example, the city did not develop nearly as much as a locus of power as in Western Europe.

7 See Tipps, “Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of Societies;” Whitaker, C. S. Jr, ”A Dysrhythmic Process of Political Change,“ World Politics, 19 (01, 1967);CrossRefGoogle ScholarGusfield, Joseph R., “Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities in the Study of Social Change,” American Journal of Sociology, 72(11, 1966);Google ScholarBendix, Reinhard, “Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 3 (04, 1967);Google ScholarMigdal, Joel S., “Why Change? Towards a New Theory of Change Among Individuals in the Process of Modernization,” World Politics, 26(01 1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar These articles were written after the appearance of a large number of empirical works which could not be explained according to the Western-based models of change. See, for example, Khalaf, Samir, “Primordial Ties and Politics in Lebanon,” Middle Eastern Studies, 4 (04 1968);CrossRefGoogle ScholarMitchell, J. Clyde, The Kalela Dance, Aspects of Social Relationships among Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia, Rhodes-Livingstone Paper No. 27 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956);Google ScholarSchwartz, Benjamin I., “The Limits of ‘Tradition versus Modernity’ as Categories of Explanation: The Case of the Chinese Intellectual,” Daedalus, (Spring, 1972).Google Scholar On Africa see a number of the articles in Wallerstein, Immanuel (ed.), Social Change: The Colonial Situation (New York: John Wiley, 1966).Google Scholar

8 See, for example, Quandt, William B., et al., The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973);Google ScholarYa'ari, Ehud, Fatah (Tel-Aviv: Levin- Epstein, 1970);Google ScholarChaliand, Gerald, “The Palestinian Resistance Movement (in early 1969)” (Beirut: Fifth of June Society);Google ScholarHarkabi, Yehoshafat, Fedayeen Action and Arab Strategy (Adelphi Papers, No. 53, December 1968).Google Scholar

9 Porath, Y., The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918–1929 (London: Frank Cass, 1974), ch. 2.Google Scholar

10 Gibb, H. A. R. and Bowen, Harold, Islamic Society and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 270.Google Scholar

11 Rosenfeld, Henry, They Were Peasants (Israel: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1964), p. 16;Google Scholar and Cohen, Abner, Arab Border-Villages in Israel (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1965), p. 10.Google Scholar

12 See, for example, the account of Ma'oz, Moshe, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine 1840–1861 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 118–23. He describes in his book on the Tanzimat Reforms the long, drawn-out efforts of the Ottoman regime to bring the Hebron leader, Abd al-Rahman, under central control.Google Scholar

13 See Granott, A., The Land System in Palestine (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952), p. 60.Google Scholar

14 Land tenure changes took place in numerous other countries in the latter half of the nineteenth century including Mexico, Colombia, and Bolivia. For similar efforts of ad ministrative reforms in Vietnam, see McAlister, John M. Jr, and Mus, Paul, The Viet namese and Their Revolution, Harper Torchbooks (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).Google Scholar

15 See Auhagen, Hubert, Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Landesnatur und der Land- wirtschaft Syriens (Berlin: Deutsche Landwirtschaft, 1907).Google Scholar

16 See Cohen, , Arab Border-Villages, p. 6.Google Scholar

17 See the Johnson-Crosbie, Report: Government of Palestine, Report of a Committee on the Economic Conditions of Agriculturists in Palestine (Jerusalem, 1930). As in the period before World War I, the debt of the peasants in interest equalled their entire yearly income. Interest ranged from 30 percent a year to as much as 50 percent for three months. Half the tenant's net income went for rent.Google Scholar

18 There are continuing debates about the veracity of the British censuses, but natural increase seemed to average over 2.5 percent for the Arabs during the mandate, one of the highest rates in the world.

19 John Simpson, H., Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development (Palestine: 10, 1930), p. 14.Google Scholar The West Bank continues to be an area which is not easily developed. Pohoryles, Samuel, Agriculture in Israel: A Model of Economic Plan ning (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1972),Google Scholar estimates that only five percent of its cultivable land is irrigated now. Also see The Middle East, a Political and Economical Survey (2nd ed.: New York: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1954), p. 363.Google Scholar There was some switching to cash cropping but this did not solve the problem. See Nathan, Robert R., etal., Palestine, Problem and Promise: An Economic Study (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1946), p. 8.Google Scholar

20 Such peasant economic crises were occurring in much the same fashion in other parts of the world as well. See, for example, McAlister, and Mus, , The Vietnamese and Their Revolution; Joel S. Migdal, Peasants, Politics, and Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Prince ton University Press, 1974), Ch. 5;Google ScholarHinton, William, Fanshen (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966);Google ScholarPearse, Andrew, “Peasants and Revolution: The Case of Bolivia, Part I,” Economics and Society, 1 (08, 1972).Google Scholar

21 The intensive seasonal agricultural work on Jewish settlements and the building in these communities was done mostly by Arabs before World War I. Between the wars, the relative number of Arabs in these jobs fell, but the absolute numbers stayed fairly constant. The Settlement Economy Book for 1947 (Tel-Aviv: Ha'va'ad Ha'leumi, 1947), p. 503 (Hebrew).Google Scholar

22 Nablus had had some industry for several centuries. See Ma'oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine. However, it did not grow as a center. One reason was that Egyptian import taxes were imposed on the famous Nablus soap, undermining a major export market. Mansur, G., The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate, compiled from material submitted by Arab Labour Organizations (Jerusalem, 1936), p. 22.Google Scholar

23 The overall rate of increase of population for the Arabs was 28.4 percent between 1922 and 1931. Jaffa grew by 62 percent (and the villages around it by more than 100 percent), and Haifa grew by 87 percent. Compare this to the rates of increase between 1922 and 1931 in the four largest cities in the mountainous region:

Jacoby, F. Y. (ed.), The Anglo Palestine Year Book 1947–1948 (London, 1948).Google Scholar These figures are all somewhat suspect, although the relative rates are probably nearly correct.

24 Mansur, , The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate, p. 14.Google Scholar

25 Rosenfeld, , They Were Peasants, p. 179, states that 42 percent of the men in one Arab community found work outside the village. The process of movement to the city was not one that would show up as a smooth curve. Although already evident in the 1920s, a major spurt seems to have occurred in the early 1930s. The political disturbance from 1936–39 caused a withdrawal back to village living and occupations. Another major spurt occurred during the years of World War II.Google Scholar

26 Thus, not all urbanization was taking place directly in a movement from villages to cities. See footnote 1.

27 See Cohen, , Arab Border-Villages in Israel, p. 14.Google ScholarRosenfeld, Henry, “The Arab Village Proletariat” in Revadim Be'Israel, ed. by Eisenstadt, S. N., et at. (Jerusalem: Akadmon, 1968).Google ScholarHorowitz, David and Hinden, Rita, Economic Survey of Palestine, With Special Reference to the Years 1936 and 1937 (Tel-Aviv: Economic Research Institute of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 1938), pp. 36 and 207.Google Scholar

28 Baster, James, “The Economic Problems of Jordan,” International Affairs, 31 (01, 1955), 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Even without the 1948 war between Jews and Arabs, withdrawal of the British caused thousands of Palestinians to lose their jobs. Cohen, Aharon, Israel and the Arab World (New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), p. 457.Google Scholar

30 In fact, reality turned out to be worse than even the pessimists had projected. Not only did British withdrawal force a movement back to the village (a reversal of the long-term migratory pattern of movement westward), it was accompanied by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. This, of course, resulted in the added burden of refugees in the West Bank which became incorporated into the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. The war was then followed by a severe depression in the West Bank.

31 A Survey ofPalestine, prepared for the Information of the Anglo-American Commit tee of Inquiry (Palestine: Government Printer, 1946), Volume II, p. 727.Google Scholar

32 In industry, laborers’ (both Arabs’ and Jews’) earnings rose between 124 percent and 277 percent (with only one industry falling below 168 percent) between 1939 and 1945, while in the same period the cost of living rose 154 percent. Ibid., Volume III, p. 1337. In agriculture, the labor shortage and the high world prices resulted in some agricultural labor earning 300–400 percent more. It was a time when the small peasant landholder was able to reduce considerably or eliminate his debt.

33 Himadeh counted 1,236 “industries” which were in existence before World War I in Palestine and which lasted at least until 1927. Seventy-five percent of these were Arab. They were principally olive oil presses (339), straw mat workshops (124), shoe and bootmaking crafts (114), and metal works (101), such as smiths. Himadeh, Sa'id B., “Industry” in Economic Organization of Palestine, ed. by Himadeh, (Beirut: American University, 1938), pp. 216–21.Google Scholar

34 Abramovitz, Z. and Gelfat, Y., The Arab Holding in Palestine and the Countries of the Middle East (Palestine: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1944), pp. 61 and 78Google Scholar (Hebrew). They estimate that from 1920–40, the number of workers in Arab industry and crafts tripled, the output was up by a factor of 3 1/2, and the invested capital up by a factor of four. Also, see Himadeh, , “Industry,” p. 223;Google Scholar and Great Britain and Palestine 1915–1945, Information Paper No. 20 (New York: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1946), p. 71.Google Scholar

35 The Settlement Economy Book for 1947, pp. 513–14.Google Scholar

36 See, for example, Abramovitz, and Gelfat, , The Arab Holding, p. 59.Google Scholar They estimate that by 1940, there were about 18,000 salaried workers in Arab industry and about 10,000 wage laborers. Including small handicrafts, they estimate, there were more than 40,000 employed in Arab industries by the end of World War II out of a total Arab work force of more than 300,000. The industrial censuses of 1940 and 1943 indicate somewhat different figures, but they exclude certain industries and many handicraft establishments. Thus, the 1940 census shows 4,117 workers and 754 proprietors in non-Jewish industry while the 1942 census shows 8,804 workers and 2,741 proprietors. Government of Palestine, De partment of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Palestine 1944–5 (Jerusalem: 1946).Google Scholar“The Arab trades which are most developed are: milling, tobacco manufacturing and some branches of the textile and metal trades.” A Survey of Palestine, Vol. I, p. 508.Google Scholar

37 Jewish enterprises were principally manned by Jews who offered (in addition to capital) a more highly trained labor force. The result was that even with the economic boom the Palestinian Arabs experienced during World War II, the economic gap between Arabs and Jews continued to grow. In 1939, Jewish earnings were 120 percent more than those of the Arabs, while by 1945 they were 160 percent more. A Survey of Palestine, Vol. III, p. 1337.Google Scholar

38 Even in cases where there were two separate pay scales for native labor and immi grant workers, the pay scale of the immigrants or foreign workers certainly did affect the demands and the gains of the native workers in colonial enterprises. See, for example, Zelniker, Shimshon, Labor Politics and Development: The African Mineworkers of Zam bia (The NOK Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

39 See von Grunebaum, G. E., Islam (London: Routledge and Regan Paul, 1955), pp. 141–58.Google Scholar

40 Ibid. Also see Murvar, Vatro, “Some Tentative Modifications of Weber's Typology: Occidental versus Oriental City” in Meadows, and Mizruchi, (eds.), Urbanism, Urbaniza tion, and Change, pp. 51–63.Google Scholar

41 Waqf funds were a percentage of the total tithe revenues of the country. The funds of the Supreme Moslem Council and the Waqf Committee amounted to about 260,000 Sterling Pounds annually. Great Britain and Palestine 1915–1945, pp. 26–29Google Scholar, 113. Also, on the ensuing discussion of the changed status of the Muslims, see Porath, , The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement.Google Scholar

42 See Rosenfeld, “The Arab Proletariat,” pp. 478–479;Google Scholar also Nathan, , et al., Palestine, pp. 8 and 198.Google Scholar

43 Palestine, A Study of Jewish, Arab and British Policies, Vol. I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947). Published for the Esco Foundation for Palestine, pp. 465–466.Google Scholar Also, Great Britain and Palestine 1915–1945, p. 30.Google Scholar

44 von Grunebaum, Islam; Murvar, , “Some Tentative Modifications of Weber's Typol ogy.” PP. 55–56.Google Scholar

45 Weber, Max, The City (New York: The Free Press, 1958). Stein Rokkan has done some of the most interesting recent work.Google Scholar

46 Perhaps the most influential work in modernization was that of Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society (New York: The Free Press, 1958). Lerner saw the role of the West as that of introducing an impetus to change.Google Scholar

47 Hoselitz, Bert F., ”Interaction between Industrial and Pre-Industrial Stratification Systems“ in Smelser, Neil J. and Lipset, Seymour M. (eds.), Social Structure and Mobility in Economic Development (Chicago: Aldine, 1966), p. 193.Google Scholar

48 “Building Authority: A Return to Fundamentals,” World Politics, 26 (04, 1974), 337–38.Google Scholar

49 Like Keehn, Peter M. Blau also sees the basis of power in social exchange. “A man with resources at his disposal that enable him to meet other men's needs can attain power over them ….” There are a number of conditions that need to apply to make this statement true, claims Blau. One of these is that men cannot obtain the benefits from an alternative source. This was the point that prevented the attainment of power and the building of a constituency. ”Social Exchange,“ in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume 7, ed. by Siles, David L. (Macmillan & The Free Press, 1968), pp. 455–56.Google Scholar

50 A number of works on Africa, particularly, have woven the colonial experience into analyses of social and political change, but too often the analysis is more in terms of the “colonial legacy” than dynamic factors that have had a continuous effect on class forma tion and political change. For one of the best accounts on the complex relation among foreign powers, old elites, and new elites, see Kilson, Martin, Political Change in a West African State (New York: Atheneum, 1969).Google Scholar

51 On subsequent effects of the split between Muslim Sunnis and Christian sects on the development of a Palestinian leadership, see Quandt, , et at, The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism, pp. 79–80.Google Scholar

52 Huntington, , Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 144–47.Google Scholar

53 “…Bolivian politics—like Argentine, Brazilian, and Chilean politics—came to be characterized by political stalemate: no one political or social sector was able to attain a hegemonic position or impose its direction on public policy.” Keehn, “Building Author ity,” p. 340.Google Scholar

54 Shils’ works on intellectuals in the new states remains the most important work in this area. He implies that political organization at the grass roots level, or a political machine, is something in which intellectuals are very little involved. In fact, it is the absence of such machines that gives intellectuals fertile ground for political leadership. Shils, Edward, “The Intellectuals in the Political Development of the New States,” World Politics, 12 (04, 1960).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 Part of the reason the political struggle differed was because much of the opposition to the landowners was deflected to the struggle against imperialism and Zionism. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that foreign rule also nurtured the emergence of new Arab forces. The power of instituting and maintaining restraints was no longer under the landowners’ control. The autonomy the landowners had enjoyed under Ottoman rule, as well as their ability to suppress nascent urban groups, diminished as the city became an administrative center of the British and an economic center of the Jews.

56 See, for example, Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement; Waines, David, “The Failure of the Nationalist Resistance” in Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim (ed.), The Transformation of Palestine (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971), pp. 207–235;Google Scholar and John, Robert and Hadawi, Sami, The Palestine Diary, Vol. I, 1914–1945 (New York: New World Press, 1970).Google Scholar

57 Kalkas, Barbara, “The Revolt of 1936: A Chronicle of Events” in Abu-Lughod, (ed-), The Transformation of Palestine, p. 242.Google Scholar

58 A Survey of Palestine, Vol. II, p. 599.Google Scholar

59 The use of terror might be another indication of the landowning families’ falling socia control and power in the country and their need to resort to internal violence to maintair political conformity.

60 Raghib Nashashibi left the Arab Higher Committee.

61 Theda R. Skocpol states that what is needed is a gestalt switch from intra-societa theories—specifically, those dealing with modernization-to intersocietal ones. The lattei would recognize “…that large-scale social change within societies is always in large par caused by forces operating among them, through their economic and political interaction.” “A Critical Review of Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship anc Democracy,” Politics and Society, 4 (Fall, 1973), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar Also, seeStauffer, Robert B. “Great-Power Constraints on Political Development” in Neubauer, Deane E. (ed.). Readings in Modern Political Analysis (2nd ed.; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1974), pp. 197–230.Google Scholar

62 Among those in the dependencia school, see, for example, Frank, Andr´e Gunder “The Development of Underdevelopment” in Rhodes, Robert I. (ed.), Imperialism ana Underdevelopment, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), pp. 4–17;Google Scholar and Santos, Theotonis Dos, “The Structure of Dependence,” American Economic Review, 60 (03, 1970), pp. 231–236.Google Scholar For a different approach, see Moran, Theodore H., “Foreign Expan sion as an ‘Institutional Necessity’ for U.S. Corporate Capitalism,” World Politics, 25 (04, 1973), pp. 370–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Probably the most important work, to date, is Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World-System (New York: Academic Press, 1974).Google Scholar

63 See, for example, Nelson, Joan, “The Urban Poor: Disruption or Political Integration in Third World Cities?” World Politics, 22 (04, 1970);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Cornelius, Wayne A. Jr, “Urbanization as an Agent in Latin American Political Instability: The Case of Mexico,” American Political Science Review, 63 (09, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 On such towns, see Burki, Shahid Javed, “Development of Towns: The Pakistan Experience,” Asian Survey, 14 (08, 1974), pp. 751–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar