Beyond the Miracle of the Market
The Political Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya

This 2005 book focuses on Kenya, a country that continued to grow while others declined in Africa.

Robert H. Bates (Author)

9780521852692, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 May 2005

226 pages, 7 b/w illus. 3 maps 22 tables
23.6 x 15.6 x 2.1 cm, 0.42 kg

'… a new edition of a very successful volume first published in 1989. … I was struck by how well the … book has aged. It is a complex story, but well told … [it] shows a truly sophisticated and deep understanding of the new institutionalist analysis.' Public Choice

As capitalism defeated socialism in Eastern Europe, the market displaced the state in the developing world. In Beyond the Miracle of the Market, first published in 2005, Bates focuses on Kenya, a country that continued to grow while others declined in Africa, and mounts a prescient critique of the neo-classical turn in development economics. Attributing Kenya's exceptionalism to its economic institutions, this book pioneers the use of 'new institutionalism' in the field of development. In doing so, however, the author accuses the approach of being apolitical. Institutions introduce power into economic life. To account for their impact, economic analysis must therefore be complemented by political analysis; micro-economics must be imbedded in political science. In making this argument, Bates relates Kenya's subsequent economic decline to the change from the Kenyatta to the Moi regime and the subsequent use of the power of economic institutions to redistribute rather than to create wealth.

1. The demand for revolution: the agrarian origins of Mau Mau
Appendix 1A. Kinship and stratification
2. Material interest and political preference: the agrarian origins of political conflict
3. Institutional structure, agricultural development, and political conflict
4. From drought to famine: the dynamics of subsistence crises
Appendix 4A. The buying center program
5. The politics of food crises
Appendix 5A. Famine: Meru, August 1984.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], Comparative politics [JPB], Development studies [GTF], Regional studies [GTB]