Sabrin Beg, University of Delaware
Sabrin Beg, University of Delaware
Traditional Elites: Political Economy of Agricultural Technology and Tenancy
Traditional Elites: Political Economy of Agricultural Technology and Tenancy
Traditional elites can perpetuate their political in uence through agricultural relationships. I show that landlords in Pakistan can make cost-effective transfers to sharecropper-tenants, thereby gaining tenants' electoral support and controlling policy. Technological change in agriculture makes sharecropping less optimal, attenuating landlords' electoraladvantage. Exogenous productivity change lowers the rate of sharecropping and lowers the likelihood of election of landlords in landlord-dominated areas; in turn electoral competition improves and the composition of public goods shifts. While demonstrating clientelism in rural agrarian societies through sharecropping contracts, I also highlight how changes in agricultural technology affect it.