Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa / Edition 1

by Robert H. Bates

Overview

The essays in this volume represent a dialogue between theory and data. The theory is drawn from a branch of contemporary political economy which can also be labeled the collective-choice school. The data are drawn from Africa. The book extends the methods of reasoning developed in collective choice from their original base-the advanced industrial democracies-to new territory; the literature on rural Africa. Such as extension challenges the power of this form of political economy. It also enriches it, for the central questions which motivate the contemporary study of political economy are often addressed with unique clarity in the scholarship on rural Africa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520060142
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/20/1987
Series:	California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy , #8
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. The pre-colonial period; 1. The preservation of order in stateless societies: a reinterpretation of Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer; 2. The centralisation of African societies; Part II. The colonial period; 3. Pressure groups, public policy and agricultural development: a study of divergent outcomes; 4. The commercialisation of agriculture and the rise of rural political protest; Part III. Agrarian society in post-independence Africa; 5. The nature and origins of agricultural policies in Africa; Conclusion; Notes; Index.