The legacy of social conflicts over property rights in rural Brazil and Mexico: Current land struggles in historical perspective

This article proposes an approach to the agrarian question that focuses on the establishment of absolute private property rights over land in Brazil and Mexico. The author argues that current land struggles are conditioned by the property regimes inherited from past struggles. The author examines the liberal reforms of the nineteenth century and argues that the balance of class forces led to the slow establishment of absolute private property in Brazil, while in Mexico they triggered the Revolution of 1910–1917, which limited agrarian capitalism. The author then turns to the consequences of these different property regimes in the twentieth century and argues that capitalist social relations have been more dominant in the Brazilian than in the Mexican countryside. The conservative modernization of the 1960s and 1970s is identified as a turning point in the fully capitalist development of agriculture in Brazil. The shift toward food imports, the elimination of subsidies, and the reform of Article 27 of the Constitution signal the re-establishment of the conditions for capitalist development of agriculture in Mexico. The article ends with an assessment of the MST and EZLN's strategies to protect peasants’ access to land and to influence the institutional setting determining access to land.     

The contested nature of Afro-descendant quilombo land claims in Brazil

In Brazil, Afro-descendant quilombola communities were for the first time in history recognised as legal rights-holders to land in the 1988 constitution – 100 years after the abolition of slavery. Drawing on fieldwork in the quilombo Bombas in the state of São Paulo, and a review of relevant literature, this contribution explores the historical trajectory of the constitutional quilombo provision and how it has been translated into practice. Combining a discussion of the use of self-identification and the concepts of ‘regulation’, ‘force’, ‘market’ and ‘legitimation’ when analysing the dynamics of access and exclusion, we show how struggles over land are simultaneously enacted in controversies over the meanings of quilombola identity and its implications.     

Agrarian structure,foreign investment in land,and land prices in Brazil

The recent global rush for farmland in Latin America has produced a dramatic increase in the level of foreign investment in land in Brazil. The current trend accentuates the ongoing process of foreignization of agriculture associated with the production of grains, sugar, ethanol and other commodities, increasing land prices. In response, the Brazilian government reestablished a legal mechanism for ‘controlling’ land-based foreign investment which has proven neither efficient nor effective in solving land concentration. This paper examines this issue by analyzing the causes of the increase in investment as well as the consequences of this process with respect to land prices, critically situating land-based investments and the government's policy response in a broader discussion of the demands of agrarian social movements.     

The land question: special economic zones and the political economy of dispossession in India

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have become the epicenters of ‘land wars’ across India, with farmers resisting the state's forcible transfer of their land to capitalists. Based on 18 months of research focused on an SEZ in Rajasthan, this paper illuminates the role of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (ABD) in Indian capitalism today and its consequences for rural India. It argues that the existing theories of land grabs do not adequately explain why dispossession becomes necessary to accumulation at particular times and places, and seeks to reconstruct Harvey's theory of ABD to adequately account for it. It then shows the specific kind of rentier- and IT-driven accumulation that dispossession is making possible in SEZs and the non–labor-absorbing, real-estate–driven agrarian transformation this generates in the surrounding countryside. Land speculation amplifies class and caste inequalities in novel ways, marginalizes women and creates an involutionary dynamic of agrarian change that is ultimately impoverishing for the rural poor. Given the minimal benefits for rural India in this model of development, farmer resistance to land dispossession is likely to continue and pose the most serious obstacle to capitalist growth in India. The agrarian questions of labor and capital are, consequently, now rejoined in ‘the land question.’     

The political economy of sugarcane flexing: initial insights from Brazil,Southern Africa and Cambodia

In the context of rising resource demand, agricultural crops such as sugarcane are being promoted for their multiple uses in different commodity markets and as alternatives to fossil fuel equivalents (i.e. as a source of biofuel, bioelectricity and bioplastic). These commodities are also produced on an increasingly flexible basis, as sugarcane mills respond to price signals and switch between different crop uses. This paper offers a preliminary exploration into the politics of this latest development in the capitalist industrialization of agriculture. It does so by focusing primarily on flexing in Brazil and highlighting the role of the state in both creating markets for non-food products that sugarcane mills can now switch between and managing the tensions that arise from this. These tensions have concerned consumer prices for fuel, control of distribution infrastructure and conditions of land conversion, each prompting political interventions by the state. The paper then suggests how this same process is taking place, albeit shaped by different contexts, in Southern Africa and Cambodia. It concludes with some key questions for further research: is flexing eroding the distinction between crop regimes? How do primary processors decide what their product mix will be? And on what basis do state actors support flexing between agricultural products and investments in so-called bio-refineries?     

Land reform in Iran a case study in the political economy of social engineering

This paper is a study of the Persian land reform between 1962 and 1972. It examines the genesis of the reform, its implementation and its effects, with reference to the specific features of the historical development of the Iranian society. It shows that land reform has not improved the socio‐economic status of the peasantry as a whole, while it has affected a large proportion of the peasants adversely. It offers theoretico‐empirical evidence that instead of creating an independent peasantry and a more autonomous urban bourgeoisie, the reform has led to the further consolidation of the traditional socio‐economic power of the state over all social classes.     

The international political economy of the global land rush: A critical appraisal of trends,scale, geography and drivers

Over the past few years, agribusiness, investment funds and government agencies have been acquiring long-term rights over large areas of farmland in lower income countries. It is widely thought that private sector expectations of higher agricultural commodity prices and government concerns about longer-term food and energy security underpin much recent land acquisition for agricultural investments. These processes are expected to have lasting and far-reaching implications for world agriculture and for livelihoods and food security in recipient countries. This paper critically examines evidence of trends, scale, geography and drivers in the global land rush. While this analysis broadly corroborates some widespread assumptions, it also points to a more complex set of drivers that reflect fundamental shifts in economic and geopolitical relations linking sovereign states, global finance, and agribusiness through to local groups. Only a solid understanding of these fundamental drivers can help identify levers and pressure points for policy responses to address the challenges raised by large-scale land acquisitions.     

中国志愿服务团体的政治文化功能探讨

近年中国兴起的志愿服务团体,在社会事务中发挥越来越重要的作用。志愿团体对政治发展具有支 持功能、合作功能、辅助功能、分化功能、抵触功能等多样化的功能。对志愿团体的政治管理应该注意政治领导的 重要性、利益协调的复杂性、潜能开发的迫切性、资源整合的效益性。     

政治参与对我国政治稳定的影响及对策分析

政治参与同政治稳定有着密切的关系,两者是统一的,从根本意义上讲,政治参与的实现可以促进社会政治稳定。政治参与通过公民参与政治生活愿望的满足,政治传导和反馈系统的增强,以及政治监督和政治安全阀门作用的发挥来巩固和促进社会政治稳定。但是,政治参与并非一定能带来政治稳定,两者之间存在着一些变数关系。政治参与的制度化水平,政治参与主体的组织化程度以及政治参与形式的运用都会影响到社会政治稳定。     

The land grab and corporate food regime restructuring

Land grab appears to be a phenomenal expression of deepening contradictions in the corporate food regime. In particular, the end of cheap food (signaled in the 2008 ‘food crisis’) has generated renewed interest in agriculture for development on the part of the development industry, matched by a rising interest in offshore land investments, driven by governments securing food and fuel exports and financiers speculating on commodity futures and land price inflation. This paper interprets these developments as illusory solutions to a fundamental accumulation crisis of the neoliberal project. While this new (and final?) enclosure registers a restructuring of the food regime, as its geopolitical relations and productive content re-centers on Southern land and an emergent bioeconomic imperative, it is likely to only buy time (and space) in the short run for political and economic elites and a global consuming class. In the longer run, the attempt to resolve food regime contradictions by a spatial fix may well be catastrophic.     

The gender implications of large-scale land deals

This article introduces a discussion of gender dimensions into the growing debate on large-scale land deals. It addresses the current information gap on the differential gender effects of large-scale land deals through (1) an overview of the phases of large-scale land deals and discussion of related effects on rural men and women based on new literature on large-scale land deals and past literature on the gender effects of commercialization and contract farming; (2) a presentation of further evidence using several case studies on the gender effects of large-scale deals; and (3) a conclusion that looks at knowledge gaps and areas for further research as well as broad recommendations for gender equitable large-scale land deals.     

Oligarchs,megafarms and land reserves: understanding land grabbing in Russia

This paper seeks to unravel the political economy of large-scale land acquisitions in post-Soviet Russia. Russia falls neither in the normal category of ‘investor’ countries, nor in the category of ‘target’ countries. Russia has large ‘land reserves’, since in the 1990s much fertile land was abandoned. We analyse how particular Russia is with regards to the common argument in favour of land acquisitions, namely that land is available, unused or even unpopulated. With rapid economic growth, capital of Russian oligarchs in search of new frontiers, and the 2002 land code allowing land sales, land began to attract investment. Land grabbing expands at a rapid pace and in some cases, it results in dispossession and little or no compensation. This paper describes different land acquisitions strategies and argues that the share-based land rights distribution during the 1990s did not provide security of land tenure to rural dwellers. Emerging rural social movements try to form countervailing powers but with limited success. Rich land owners easily escape the implementation of new laws on controlling underutilized land, while there is a danger that they enable eviction with legal measures of rural dwellers. In this sense Russia appears to be a ‘normal’ case in the land grab debate.     

The growth of political ideas and their expression among young activists

Two studies were conducted. In the first, developmental information was gathered on young people's efforts to construct and elaborate on an ideal society. The subjects were 54 white middle-class boys, equally divided among 8–, 11–, and 16-year-olds. The interview protocols suggested a typology consisting of (1) a personalistic, nongovernmental construction of society, based on the child's own life space, with a concern for biological needs such as food and shelter; (2) a construction of specific but unrelated governmental institutions; (3) a better-organized conception of how institutions are interrelated; (4) a commitment to abstract principles. In the second investigation, the task and typology were applied to the study of high school left-wing activists and nonactivists –93 in all. The activists were not clearly more committed to abstract principles, although they were entertaining utopian possibilities of a society with few laws. But the surprising finding was the activists' resemblance to the youngest children (type I); they too constructed a personalistic society potentially within their own life space and were concerned with biological life-supportive issues.Study I in this paper — carried out by the second author was part of a doctoral dissertation, Conceptions of the Political Regime in the Years 8 to 16, submitted to the Department of Political Science, the University of Chicago, 1971. Study II was done by the first author. The coding manuals for Study I and Study II are available on request from the authors.Received Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Chicago and took a clinical internship at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Main interest is in developmental theory and political attitudes.Received Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Main interest is in political theory.     

Smallholdings,land law and the politics of land tenure in Papua New Guinea

It has been asserted of Papua New Guinea that the nineteenth and twentieth century expansion of capitalism into that country occurred without the commodification of more than a small amount of land. The various arguments supporting this view are rejected, and the evidence to the contrary is presented. It is shown that from the 1950s smallholder production increases have been substantial, mainly but not wholly in export crops. The role of the state is examined, with particular focus upon the characteristics of state power and the politics of land which have underpinned the increase in smallholder production. Similarities in the quality and application of state power across both colonial and post‐colonial regimes is stressed.     

The landless rural workers movement (MST) in Brazil

This translation of the 1912 preface by Karl Kautsky to Salvioli's book about captalism in the ancient world confirms the centrality to his interest of the way in which economic history informs the present and maps out the future. It reveals a concern not only with pre-capitalist and capitalist systemic transition but also economic development in turn prefigures socialism. Accordingly, kautsky's focus is on the connections between yet the distinictiveness of historically specific modes of production, their forms of property and propertylessness, and the links between production for consumption and for exchange, plus the resulting patterns both of the social relations and the forces of production and of surplus appropriation licensed thereby. For Kautsky, therefore, the value of understanding the economic conditions preceding capitalism itself, and thus also the reasons for its transcendence.     

Note on land reform in Bangladesh: The efficacy of ceilings

In this note, new data concerning the agrarian structure of Bangladesh are employed to test the efficacy of ceilings on the size of landholdings as a means of making land available to the landless and the near landless. The data confirm that the numbers of potential claimants for land far exceeds the potential supply, even if ceilings on holdings were lowered from 100 standard bighas (331/3 acres) to 25 standard bighas (81/3 acres).     

Food policy and politics: The political economy of the public distribution system in India

This article discusses the history and political economy of the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India. This food distribution programme, which dates from 1939, is meant to increase food security both at the national and the household level. Since its emergence, it has passed through several phases, the latest one starting in 1991 when India introduced a Structural Adjustment Programme. From a social constructivist perspective, this article aims at understanding (a) the most important features of this system in the various phases of its history, (b) the social processes that led to the emergence and subsequent development of distribution policy and (c) the various functions PDS has served in the course of its history. It concludes that in the most recent era, there are two contradictory tendencies (one coming from economic rationalisation, the other from populist politics) which push and pull the PDS in different directions. The latter tendency is so strong that a drastic curtailment of the food distribution programme is unlikely, despite the pleas made by those favouring cutting down subsidies and reducing the responsibility of the state.