Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:21:49.816Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lord, Peasant … and Tractor? Agricultural Mechanization, Moore’s Thesis, and the Emergence of Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2020

David J. Samuels Open the ORCID record for David J. Samuels [Opens in a new window]  and
Henry Thomson Open the ORCID record for Henry Thomson [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that landed elites oppose democratization. Whether they fear rising wages, labor mobility or land redistribution, landowners have historically repressed agricultural workers and sustained autocracy. What might change landowning elites’ preferences for dictatorship and reduce their opposition to democracy? Change requires reducing landowners’ need to maintain political control over labor. This transition occurs when mechanization reduces the demand for agricultural workers, eliminating the need for labor-repressive policies. We explain how the adoption of labor-saving technology in agriculture alters landowners’ political preferences for different regimes, so that the more mechanized the agricultural sector, the more likely is democracy to emerge and survive. Our theoretical argument offers a parsimonious revision to Moore’s thesis that applies to the global transformation of agriculture since his Social Origins first appeared, and results from our cross-national statistical analyses strongly suggest that a positive relationship between agricultural mechanization and democracy does in fact exist.

Type
Special Section: Comparative Historical Analysis
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 739 - 753
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank Karine Belarmino for valuable research assistance, and Tom Vargas and participants in seminars at ASU, Princeton, Minnesota, Oxford, LSE and the 2019 APSA meeting in Washington, DC, for their comments.

References

Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James. 2006. Economic Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Albertus, Michael. 2015. Autocracy and Redistribution: The Politics of Land Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781316227107CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albertus, Michael. 2017. “Landowners and Democracy: The Social Origins of Democracy Reconsidered.” World Politics 69(2): 233–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albertus, Michael, and Menaldo, Victor. 2018. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C. 2000. “Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1300–1800.” European Review of Economic History 4(1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, Lee J., and Ferrie, Joseph P.. 1999. Southern Paternalisms and the American Welfare State: Economics, Politics, and Institutions in the South 1865–1965. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Margaret Lavina. 2000. Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ansell, Ben W., and Samuels, David J.. 2014. Inequality and Democratization: An Elite-Competition Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Araghi, Farshad A. 1995. “Global Depeasantization, 1945–1990.” Sociological Quarterly 36(2): 337–68.10.1111/j.1533-8525.1995.tb00443.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ardanaz, Martin, and Mares, Isabela. 2014. “Labor Shortages, Rural Inequality, and Democratization.” Comparative Political Studies 47(12): 1639–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhattacharya, Shreya. 2018. “Technology in Agriculture and Religious Conflict.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Houston.Google Scholar
Binswanger, Hans. 1986. “Agricultural Mechanization: A Comparative Historical Perspective.” World Bank Research Observer 1(1): 27–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boix, Carles, and Stokes, Susan. 2003. “Endogenous Democratization.” World Politics 55(4): 517–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brentano, Lujo. 1911. Die deutschen Getreidezoelle: Eine Denkschrift. Berlin: J.D. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
Coppedge, Michael, et al. 2018. “V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v8.” Varieties of Democracy Project. University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, Aditya. 2018. “Technological Change and Political Turnover: The Democratizing Effects of the Green Revolution in India.” American Political Science Review 112(4): 918–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engels, Friederich. 1977 [1894]. “The Peasant Question in France and Germany.” In Selected Works, ed.Marx, Karl and Engels, Friederich, 457–475. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Engels, Friederich. 2000 [1850]. The Peasant War in Germany. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Statistics Division. 2018. “Agricultural tractors (total).” (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RM).Google Scholar
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Statistics Division. 1955. Report on the 1950 Census of World Agriculture. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.Google Scholar
Galor, Oded, Moav, Omer, and Vollrath, Dietrich. 2009. “Inequality in Landownership, the Emergence of Human-Capital Promoting Institutions, and the Great Divergence.” Review of Economic Studies 76(1): 143–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garcia, Afranio, and Palmeira, Moacir. 2001. “Transformação agrária.” Brasil: um século de transformacoes. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras: 38–77.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara. 1999. “What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 115–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gehlbach, Scott, and Keefer, Philip. 2011. “Investment without Democracy: Ruling-Party Institutionalization and Credible Commitment in Autocracies.” Journal of Comparative Economics 39(2): 123–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerschenkron, Alexander. 1943. Bread and Democracy in Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Haber, Stephen, and Menaldo, Victor. 2011. “Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse.” American Political Science Review 105(1): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayami, Yujiro, Ruttan, Vernon W et al. 1971. Agricultural Development: An International Perspective. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1992. “The Crisis of Today’s Ideologies.” New Left Review 192: 55–64.Google Scholar
Kerbauy, Maria Teresa Miceli. 2000. A morte dos coroneis: política interiorana e poder local. Araraquara, Brazil: FCL Laboratorio Editorial, UNESP Araraquara.Google Scholar
Kuznets, Simon. 1955. “Economic Growth and Income Inequality.” American Economic Review 45(1): 1–28.Google Scholar
Leal, Victor Nunes. 2012 [1947]. Coronelismo, enxada e voto: o munícipio e o regime representativo no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Companhia das Letras.Google Scholar
Lewis, W. Arthur. 1954. “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour.” The Manchester School 22(2): 139–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2003. “Knowledge Accumulation in Comparative Historical Research: The case of authoritarianism and democracy.” In Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, ed. Rueschmeyer, Dietrich and Mahoney, James, 131–174. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mares, Isabela. 2015. From Open Secrets to Secret Voting: Democratic Electoral Reforms and Voter Autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Monty G., Gurr, Ted Robert, and Jaggers, Keith. 2017. “Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2016.” Dataset Users’ Manual. Center for Systemic Peace. (http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/p4manualv2016.pdf).Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1982 [1843]. Critique of Hegel’s `Philosophy of Right’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1913 [1852]. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Chicago: C.H. Kerr.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug. 2010. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mickey, Robert. 2015. Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944–1972, vol. 147. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Barrington. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Pereira, Anthony. 1997. End of the Peasantry: The Rural Labor Movement in Northeast Brazil, 1961–1988. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Pingali, Prabhu. 2007. “Agricultural Mechanization: Adoption Patterns and Economic Impact.” Handbook of Agricultural Economics 3: 2779-805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranis, Gustav. and Fei, John C.H.. 1961. “A Theory of Economic Development.” American Economic Review 51(4): 533–65.Google Scholar
Rueschmeyer, Dietrich, Stephens, Evelyne Huber, and Stephens, John D.. 1992. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Ruttan, Vernon W. 2002. “Productivity Growth in World Agriculture: Sources and Constraints.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 16(4): 161–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitz, Andrew, and Seckler, David. 1970. “Mechanized Agriculture and Social Welfare: The Case of the Tomato Harvester.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 52(4): 569–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, Henry. 2015. “Landholding Inequality, Political Strategy and Authoritarian Repression: Structure and Agency in Bismarck’s ‘Second Founding’ of the German Empire.” Studies in Comparative International Development 50(1): 73–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Henry. 2016. “Rural Grievances, Landholding Inequality and Civil Conflict.” International Studies Quarterly 60(3): 511–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Henry. 2019. Food and Power: Regime Type, Agricultural Policy and Political Stability. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmer, C. Peter. 1988. “The Agricultural Transformation.” In Handbook of Development Economics, Vol. 1, 275–331. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Vanhanen, Tatu. 1997. Prospects for Democracy: A Study of 172 Countries. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vanhanen, Tatu. 2003. “Democratization and Power Resources 1850-2000.” Computer file. (http://www.fsd.uta.fi/english/data/catalogue/FSD1216/meF1216e.html).Google Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh. 1995. Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank. 2018. “World Development Indicators.” (https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/world-development-indicators).Google Scholar
Ziblatt, Daniel. 2008. “Does Landholding Inequality Block Democratization?” World Politics 60(4): 610–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziblatt, Daniel. 2017. Conservative Political Parties and the Birth of Modern Democracy in Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Samuels and Thomson Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AQJWCG
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Samuels and Thomson supplementary material

Samuels and Thomson supplementary material

Download Samuels and Thomson supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 271.7 KB