Reforming States, Agricultural Transformation, and Economic Development in Russia and Japan, 1853-1913

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2109101
AutoresMark Cohen (0000-0001-9588-5128, Chinese University of Hong Kong, autor correspondente)
Ano2018
Volume60
Fascículo3
Páginas719-751
Data de publicação2018-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417518000245
OpenAlexW2809867098
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas63

A once-dominant family of interpretations of the beginnings of Japanese and Russian development claimed that policies adopted by the two states were inadequate to modernize agrarian property relations, and so both states were required to mediate between premodern agriculture and 'hot-house' modern industry. More recent accounts have insisted that despite the limited reforms to agrarian property relations, agriculture in both countries in fact dynamically participated in economic development. This paper contends that these revised accounts' one-sided focus on market opportunities leaves unresolved key puzzles. Why did productivity growth jump higher after the Meiji reforms in Japan? Why did only some regions participate in agricultural development in Russia? To answer these questions, this paper argues it is necessary to return attention to the ways agrarian property relations did and did not change following reforms adopted by the two states in the 1860s and 1870s. The key theoretical upshot of this analysis is that the initiation of capitalist development required a political process in which institutions that had previously guaranteed non-market access of rural households to subsistence were dismantled in favor of the domination of market relations

Agrarian reform · Agrarian society · Agriculture · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Economy · Geography · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Productivity · Subsistence agriculture · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Political Economy and Marxism