Scholars and policy makers have long debated the causes of the spectacular economic success achieved by the East Asian newly industrialisin g countries (NICs) as well as the lessons that other developing countries can learn from this development experience. Latin America started to industrialise many decades before the East Asian NICs and yet was quickly overtaken by them in the last few decade...

The transnational agrarian movements (TAMs) which have emerged in recent decades have been actively engaged in the politics and policies of international (rural) development. Intergovernmental and non-governmental development agencies have welcomed and supported TAMs in the context of promoting international ‘partnerships for development’. The analysis in this article revolves around the politi...

The agrarian life, the organic life over the mechanical, is a process that uses an array of cultural and biological practices to create a self-sustaining, independent and autonomous local economy. As such, it is also a rejection of the material cult of efficiency. The agrarian life is, at its most abstract, the natural and normal connection of human reason with the natural world.1 The natural w...

In his classic book, Structure and Change in Economic History, Douglass North sums up the nature of the ancient Egyptian state. As religious ruler, the pharaoh was the ultimate owner of land, which was controlled mainly by temples and state officials. But when the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 BC, agrarian property rights were at a turning point. Private landowners became politically dominant an...