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

Bibliographic Data

ID2109101
AuthorsMark Cohen (0000-0001-9588-5128, Chinese University of Hong Kong, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume60
Issue3
Pages719-751
Publication date2018-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417518000245
OpenAlexW2809867098
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited63

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