Food and Power
Regime Type, Agricultural Policy, and Political Stability

Explains how economic development leads to democracy by exploring how authoritarian governments manipulate the agricultural sector.

Henry Thomson (Author)

9781108701594, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 November 2022

251 pages, 30 b/w illus. 25 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.414 kg

'To conclude, Food and Power impresses with its massive amount of empirical evidence and highly detailed approach to analysis. Its argument is both eminently reasonable and, at times, intriguingly counterintuitive. It was a pleasure to read and should be of considerable interest to scholars of authoritarianism and political economy of development.' Brian Palmer-Rubin, Governance

The relationship between development and democratization remains one of the most compelling topics of research in political science, yet many aspects of authoritarian regime behavior remain unexplained. This book explores how different types of governments take action to shape the course of economic development, focusing on agriculture, a sector that is of crucial importance in the developing world. It explains variation in agricultural and food policy across regime type, who the winners and losers of these policies are, and whether they influence the stability of authoritarian governments. The book pushes us to think differently about the process linking economic development to political change, and to consider growth as an inherently politicized process rather than an exogenous driver of moves towards democracy.

1. Introduction
2. Policy, institutions and stability
3. Policy outcomes
4. Food, policy and unrest
5. Agricultural rents and regime durability
6. Germany, 1878–1890
7. Malaysia, 1969–1980
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Comparative politics [JPB]