Social Movements and Alliance-Building in Latin America

In the midst of an accelerating capitalist crisis, the enthusiasm of many academic commentators for social movements as a form of grassroots political agency capable of successfully resisting a globally rampant capitalism has not abated. This despite the weight of evidence to the contrary, which indicates that in Latin America the interests of farmers and smallholding peasants belonging to these movements are not best served by engaging with center-left parliamentary politics. Case studies of such alliance-building examined here include social movements in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and also Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.     

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).     

Under development and modes of production: A reply to Nicos Mouzelis

What follows is a reply to a number of points raised by Nicos Mouzelis in his review of my book, From Modernisation to Modes of Production: A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment (Macmillan 1979, £4.95 paper) in The Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, April 1980. I focus on Mouzelis’ arguments that my framework for analysing Third World societies is ideological and reductionist. I try to show how the analysis put forward in my book can be used to analyse what for me is the central problem of ‘development ‘ ‐ namely the relations between the restricted and uneven capitalist development characteristic of Third World societies, their class structures, forms of state and development strategy. I also examine the relevance of Mouzelis's alternative ‐ of inter‐relating structuralist and action perspectives ‐ and suggest that the framework put forward in my work can deal more adequately with the issues raised by Mouzelis in his review. I agree with Mouzelis that the most fruitful debates in the Sociology of Development currently centre on the relevance of the Marxist approach, and view my comments here as part of this wide‐ranging, continuing debate, of which my work forms a part.     

Looking Back over My 45 Years of Involvement with Government Reform Efforts

This Viewpoint presents a typology of options for future government reformers to help guide the design and implementation of a reform initiative, based on the author's experiences and observations over the past 45 years. Successful reformers need to be clear up front about what they are attempting to achieve and frame their efforts in ways that maximize the success and sustainability of the effort. In this article, the author offers a series of questions and answers to help future reformers choose among various design and implementation options and to help them chart their paths.     

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, <Emphasis Type="Italic">March 1917, Node III,The Red Wheel</Emphasis>. Trans. Marian Schwartz

A review of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's March 1917, translated by Marian Schwartz