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St Comp Int Dev (2016) 51:286307 DOI 10.1007/s12116-015-9194-2
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1186/10.1007/s12116-015-9194-2-x&domain=pdf
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Web End = The Politics of Urban Bias: Rural Threats and the Dual Dilemma of Political Survival
Jan H. Pierskalla1
Published online: 26 July 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Urban bias in government policy is a common phenomenon in many developing countries. Bates (1981) has famously argued that the wish to industrialize, paired with the political clout of urban residents, results in distinctly anti-rural policies. Empirically, however, the strength of urban bias varies substantially across countries and over time. This paper explains this variation by developing an argument about a countervailing force to urban bias: the threat of a rural insurgency. The direction of urban and rural bias is a function of the political threat that geographically distinct groups pose to the survival of the central government. When the rural periphery lacks collective action capacity, urban bias emerges, but if there exists a credible threat of rural violence, urban bias is diminished. I test this proposition and competing explanations using data on net taxation in the agricultural sector, covering up to 55 low- and middle-income countries from 1955 to 2007. The results show a strong relationship between past territorial conflict (which proxies for credible rural threats) and lower levels of urban bias in the developing world. The findings are robust to alternative model specifications, measures, and sensitivity analyses.
Keywords Urban bias Political economy Agricultural policy Rural insurgency
[envelopeback] Jan H. Pierskalla mailto:[email protected]
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1 The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
St Comp Int Dev (2016) 51:286307 287
Introduction
If governments enable agricultural markets to function well, supply the necessary financial and technological support, and create the necessary public infrastructure, large agricultural productivity and growth gains can be reaped (The World Bank 2007). However, economists identified a distinct anti-rural bias in the policies of many developing countries from as early as the 1950s (Myrdal 1958). Throughout the post-WWII period, governments around the world extracted resources from agricultural producers, interfered in market organization, and distorted prices although such neglect of agricultural development is generally seen as one of the main obstacles to sustained development. Given the negative impact of stunted rural development, why do governments engage in...