The Role of Rural Institutions and State Campaigns in Development

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of rural institutions and state campaigns in development. Most accounts of rural development in East Asia privilege the role of land reform and the emergence of developmental states. However, this narrative is incomplete. A thorough examination of rural sector change in the region reveals the transformative effects of rural modernization campaigns, which can be defined as policies demanding high levels of bureaucratic and popular mobilization to overhaul traditional ways of life in the countryside. East Asian governments' use of campaigns runs counter to standard portrayals of the developmental state as wholly technocratic and demonstrates that rural development was not the inevitable result of industrialization. Rather, it was an intentional policy goal accomplished with techniques that aligned more with Maoism or Leninism than with market principles or careful economic management. The chapter begins by assessing common explanations for East Asian rural development in the post-World War II period. It then turns to the case of China and explores some of the reasons for rural policy failures in the Mao era (1949–1976) and successes in the reform era (1978–present). Finally, the chapter revisits the case of Japan and concludes with a few points about why existing theories of state-led development need to be reexamined.

Local Government Organizational Response for Realizing the Maritime-Oriented Development Sustainability in Riau Island

“…This means that when local governments show a response only to meeting development needs physically, it reaps criticism that it turns out that the results obtained from development only provide benefits that are not optimal for the community (13). The effectiveness of the program is equivalent to the policy of local governments to build influenced by several variables such as the existence of intervention by external subjects, specific attention to meeting the basic needs of the community such as family food needs and / or increasing attention to the dynamic social learning process (14).…”