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Thirty Years of Transformation in the Agrarian Structure of El Salvador, 1961–1991

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Mitchell A. Seligson
Mitchell A. Seligson*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Inequality in the distribution of land has long been viewed as the social dynamite that has set off many peasant uprisings in the twentieth century. The most extensive study to date of modern guerrilla wars in Latin America, by Timothy Wickham-Crowley, found land tenure and the overall agrarian structure to be a common element in upheaval in Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua, and El Salvador (Wickham-Crowley 1992, 306–7). Samuel Huntington's classic book on development and stability articulated the explanation for these agrarian insurrections: “Where the conditions of landownership are equitable and provide a viable living for the peasant, revolution is unlikely. Where they are inequitable and where the peasant lives in poverty and suffering, revolution is likely, if not inevitable, unless the government takes prompt measures to remedy these conditions” (Huntington 1968, 375).

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , 1995 , pp. 43 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

∗

I would like to thank the director of the Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Multiples (EHPM) at the Salvadoran Ministerio de Planificación (MIPLAN), Mauricio Alens, who provided assistance and access to the data set. Daniel Flores de Paz of MIPLAN explained the sample frame and the methodology used for the expansion factors in the study. I am especially grateful to Juan Carlos Valdés of the computer center at MIPLAN, who converted the data set into a format compatible with the SPSS/PC program. This study grew out of research undertaken for USAID (contracted to Abt Associates), in which I was chief of party. The study reporting that effort (Seligson, Thiesenhusen, Childress, and Vidales 1993), however, focused exclusively on the EHPM and made no comparisons with earlier census data. Michael Wise of USAID El Salvador, Luis López Córdovez of the Food and Agriculture Organization, and Mark Wenner of Abt Associates commented extensively on earlier drafts. I also wish to thank Malcolm Childress, Don Jackson, and William Thiesenhusen of the Land Tenure Center at the University of Wisconsin for helpful comments on the research effort as it was evolving. Graduate students in my course on revolution made several helpful comments, especially Rafael Antonio Pléitez Chávez, who offered an extensive critique. John Booth, Mac Chapin, Billie De Walt, Jack Hammond, Marc Edelman, and Mark Ruhl commented on an earlier draft. Finally, Elizabeth Jean Wood, Harvard University, and John Strasma of the Land Tenure Center provided critical comments that improved the final version.

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