CETRI
INTRODUCTION
During the past three decades and especially in the context of developing
countries, nation states have been subject to a triple squeeze, namely : ‘from
above’ through globalization, with some regulatory powers being increasingly
ceded to international regulatory institutions ; ‘from below’ through the
partial decentralization of central political, fiscal and administrative powers
to local counterparts ; and ‘from the sides’ through the privatization of some
functions (Fox, 2001). Central states remain important, albeit transformed,
players in global–local politics and economy (Keohane and Nye, 2000 : 12).
This transformation is contested by different social actors at various levels (Akram-Lodhi andKay, 2009 ; Bello, 2003 ; McMichael, 2008 ; van der Ploeg,
2010), and it is the contested nature of this transformation that is, at least
partly, responsible for the uneven and varied outcomes of globalization,
decentralization and privatization policies. The rural poor [1] is profoundly
affected by these processes. The state’s partial withdrawal from its traditional
obligations to the rural poor, and the waves of privatization that affect
poor people’s control over natural resources and access to basic utilities,
have left many exposed to the harshness of market forces and are partly
responsible for the recent global food crisis (Bello, 2009 ; Chang, 2009 ;
Holt-Gimenez et al., 2009 ; McMichael, 2009). The changing global–local
institutions that structure the rules underwhich poor people assimilate into or
resist the corporate-controlled global politics and economy, have presented
both threats and opportunities to the world’s rural population.
These threats and opportunities have provoked and encouraged national
rural social movements to further localize (in response to state decentralization),
and at the same time to internationalize their movements, advocacy
works and actions (in response to globalization), while holding on to their
national characters. One result of this complex adjustment is the emergence
of more horizontal, ‘polycentric’ rural social movements (Chalmers et al.,
1997) which simultaneously struggle to construct coordinative structures
for ‘vertical integration’ (Fox, 2001). The apparently contradictory political
directions of globalization versus decentralization, which are having such
an impact on the state, are thus also transforming the political organizational
processes of agrarian movements. These latter processes are dynamic and
contingent, resulting in varied and uneven outcomes institutionally, geographically
and temporally. It is from this conjuncture that current transnational
agrarian movements (TAMs) have emerged. [2] The more politically
radical section of TAMs is part of what Evans calls ‘counter-hegemonic
globalization’, which he defines as ‘a globally organized project of transformation
aimed at replacing the dominant (hegemonic) global regime with one
that maximizes democratic political control and makes the equitable development
of human capabilities and environmental stewardship its priorities’
(Evans, 2008 : 272).
International development agencies were quick to seize upon the emergence
of TAMs as an opportunity for ‘partnerships for development’ — a recent phenomenon that has helped define the terrain of contemporary development
practice. It began in the early 1990s with the UN summit on the
environment in Rio de Janeiro, followed in the mid-1990s by a reform in the
procedures of accrediting civil society groups in the UN, which allowed civil
society groups to make considerable inroads during this period (McKeon,
2009). Steets and Thomsen (2009 : 8) provide a good summary of the extent
to which such broad partnerships have multiplied in recent years :
Although there is no global overview of the number of existing partnerships, evidence
based on reports of individual agencies, the rising number of entries to the database of the
Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) — now [in 2009] listing 344 partnerships
compared to 319 in 2006 — and the increased number of bilateral partnership programs
(from 6 to 10 of 22 DAC donors) suggests an increase in overall partnership numbers. The
[FAO], for example, countsmore than 830 collaborative arrangements. . . There is also a trend
towards more global multi-stakeholder initiatives. About 400 global partnerships worldwide
were identified in 2005. . . compared with 50 in the 1980s. The World Bank currently engages
in 125 Global Partnership Programs and 50 Regional Partnership Programs. . . the United
Nations Development Programme engaged in more than 40. . . and the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD). . . 30.
For international institutions, forging alliances with civil society is not
new. What is new is forging alliances with transnational groups. Sauvinet-
Bedouin et al. (2005 : 11) explain that ‘the new phenomenon affecting the
relations between FAO and the NGOs and CSOs [civil society organizations]
is the coalescence of NGO/CSOs into transnational social movements and
networks, think tanks and global policy networks’. For the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organization, FAO, forging partnership with TAMs is part of
their mandate in carrying out the Millennium Development Goals, of which
the eighth goal is ‘building a global partnership for development’. But the
FAO is also cautious, noting that, ‘these are evolving [groups] and include a
very broad range of organizations, representing diverse groups and views in
society’. The agency therefore calls for attention to be given to ‘the genuine
ability of individual CSOs/NGOs to represent specific constituencies’, and
stresses that ‘when entering into partnership with CSOs/NGOs, FAO needs
to be more open and inclusive. This is all the more important in that FAO is
particularly appreciated by this category in its role as an honest broker’ (FAO,
2006 : 2–3). The FAO has raised some issues here about differences among
TAMs, although it stops short of naming those differences and explaining
why they matter.
I would argue that it is not helpful to claim that TAMs are heterogeneous
without specifying the structural and institutional bases and implications
of such differences. The differences among TAMs are underpinned by the
social class origin and base, the ideology and politics, and the organizational/
institutional make-up of the TAMs. These three categories do not
cover everything — other critical social relations such as gender, caste and
ethnicity are also important. For the purposes of this article, however, the
discussion will be limited to these three factors. Structural and institutional differences between TAMs influence the degree of their power when they
enter the terrain of international development policy making, which is not
a neutral political arena. This terrain is occupied by actors with competing
national, class, ideological, professional and corporate interests, as noted by
O’Brien et al. (2000 : Ch. 1).
The various TAMs which are active in the international land policy making
terrain are far more differentiated internally in terms of their structural
location and institutional make-up than is usually assumed. This is partly
addressed in Borras et al. (2008) and Edelman (2008). The focus here will
be on political dynamics and differentiation between TAMs engaged in land
issues, and the implications of these for the politics of representation, intermediation
and mobilization. V´ıa Campesina is the key reference point in
this article, but it is examined in relation to three other TAMs : the International
Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP), the International Land
Coalition (ILC) and the International Planning Committee (IPC) for Food
Sovereignty. While TAMs have become one of themost vibrant civil society
groups during the past two decades, there are surprisingly few critical scholarly
studies about them, compared to other transnational civil society groups
such as advocacy networks for human rights, migrants and the environment
(see, e.g., Fox, 2005 ; Keck and Sikkink, 1998 ; Smith and Johnston, 2002 ;
Tarrow, 2005). [3]
Most of the existing TAM-centred studies have not taken a systematic look
at the political dynamics and differentiation between major TAMs working
on land issues. Edelman (2003) and Desmarais (2003, 2007) were among
the first to offer insightful analyses of the differences between IFAP and V´ıa
Campesina in general terms, with Desmarais (2003 : 119) warning against
‘conflating IFAP and the V´ıa Campesina into just one space’. Building
on the work of Edelman and Desmarais, this article aims to : (i) broaden
the discussion by bringing in two other global coalitions ; (ii) deepen the
analysis by systematically interrogating these coalitions on their national
profile, looking at the Philippine case ; (iii) focus the analysis by examining
these TAMs from the perspective of a specific campaign issue (land) ; and (iv)
systematize the analysis of the structural and institutional bases of differences
between V´ıa Campesina and the three other coalitions by utilizing a class
analytical lens.
A better understanding of the structural and institutional bases of the differences
between major TAMs requires a political economy analysis. Here, we follow the four key questions in agrarian political economy as elaborated
by Henry Bernstein (2010 : Ch. 2) : who owns what ? who does what ? who
gets what ? what do they do with the created surplus wealth ? The rural poor
is comprised of various ‘classes of labour’ (Bernstein, 2010), which experience
the impact of neoliberal globalization differently : a landless labourer’s
interests differ from those of a small-scale farmer ; a poor tenant-farmer has
interests that may conflict with those of a seasonally hired farm labourer ;
the interests of a labourer hired full-time may compete with those of a
seasonal farm worker ; a poor pastoralist has different interests from a subsistence
farmer ; and so on.
These are all working poor people, all linked to the land ; they are all part
of the ‘local community’, but they have different, even conflicting, social
positions within it. Some among these groups may be ‘exploiters’ : a landlord
and a moneylender are the exploiters for a poor tenant-farmer, for example,
while a medium-scale farmer may exploit a landless labourer. Moreover, it
is quite common to see individuals (or households) assume multiple working
class categories as they juggle different sources of livelihoods over time and
space. Development policies are not politically neutral institutional instruments.
When carried out in rural poor communities, they impact differently
on these various groups of people. In a setting where there are more potential
claimants than available land, a land reform policy will include some but
will exclude others ; a credit programme aimed at developing agricultural
productivity may benefit farmers, but not landless labourers.
This picture of a differentiated rural poor becomes evenmore complicated
when we include other social classes that are also linked to the land : middle
and rich farmers. The latter also work on the land, but they accumulate
wealth through their own farm production, trade and money-lending, among
other activities. They were the masters of Lenin’s Russian countryside more
than a hundred years ago ; they remain the masters in most of the world’s
countryside today. [4] A neoliberal land policy anchored on liberalized land
markets may benefit the relatively capital-rich strata of middle and rich
farmers, at the expense of small-scale farmers or those who rely on open
access or common property land resources. A policy of low prices for farm
inputs may benefit the middle and rich farmers, but not landless and farmless
labourers. A policy of low prices for food will be welcomed by the net
food buyers among the landless labourers but may hurt the interests of food
surplus-producing rural classes.
While these are all ‘people of the land’, the defining feature of each
group’s link to the land is its relations to the means of production (usually
land, labour and capital). Not only are the impacts of development policies
within and between these groups differentiated ; theways inwhich the groups
frame their issues and demands and engage in politics also differ from each other. Surplus-producing middle and rich farmers may be fiercely opposed
to global trade liberalization, while landless rural labourers with no farm
products to sell will be unmoved by it. They, in turn, are likely to support a
radical redistributive land reform, which would be less relevant to medium
farmers and is likely to be opposed by rich farmers.
The four key political economy questions posed by Bernstein (2009 : 74–
7 ; 2010) help us unpack vague categories such as ‘rural poor’ or ‘people
of the land’, in order to see the actual impact of development policies —
because, as Herring and Agarwala (2006) rightly ask, how else can we
disaggregate the process and impact of development ? Discourses by TAMs
are replete with references to ‘local people’, ‘people of the land’, ‘local
community’, ‘affected local community’, and so on. But a local community,
while it includes the rural poor (landless labourers, small farmers, poor
pastoralists), also usually includes kulaks (rich farmers), traditional chiefs,
lumpen elements, cacique, corrupt petty state bureaucrats and officials, and
other elite social groups whose interests may be contradictory to those of the
working classes. The ‘people of the land’ formulation builds on a ‘people–
land’ relationship which then becomes the defining feature of the identity
politics that emerges among some movements. While this is relevant, it tends
to neglect other equally if not more important relationships, i.e., ‘people–
people’ relations—‘social relations’ among the differentiated social classes
and groups of people who may all be linked to the land. [5] By putting the
two dimensions (people–land, people–people) together in one analysis, it is
possible to see that a single movement with a single identity (a movement
of ‘people of the land’) is likely to have plural class interests internally, and
that while some of these interests may be complementary, others may be
contradictory.
That large TAMs are also ‘arenas of action’ is largely due to the existing
plural class interests as well as ideologies and politics within and between
(sub-)national movements linked to these TAMs. As different (sub-)national
movements enter the TAM arena, there will inevitably be variation in their
degrees of power, in the political circumstances and timing of their entries
(see, e.g., Baletti et al., 2008), in their institutional and political (and even key
leaders’ personal) motivations and agendas — which may include needing
to reposition their movements in the context of weak or waning influence on
the home-front (Edelman, 2008). The way these movements try to mediate or
aggregate issues and demands of their local–national constituencies may be more or less effective at different times. The local–national–global links in
TAMs therefore should not be assumed to be unproblematic, as insights from
Boyer (2010), Newell (2008) and Scoones (2008), among others, remind us.
Class analysis is key to understanding the differences and similarities in
the ideological and political standpoints of different TAMs, and to understanding
the issues that unite or divide agrarian movements, as demonstrated
for example in the contributions to Brass (1994). A movement with a significantmass
base among, and/or a political leadership captured by, rich farmers
will not call for redistributive land reform or labour reforms, as illustrated
by the Karnataka State Farmers’ Association (KRRS) in India (a member
of V´ıa Campesina). This contrasts with movements such as Brazil’s Movimento
dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) (another member of V´ıa
Campesina) that has a mass base among the landless whose key demand
is the redistribution of land property. Class, of course, cannot be the only
relevant factor : other identities, including gender, ethnicity, race and caste,
intersect with it.
‘Identity politics’ has been a popular lens through which to study TAMs ;
it has underscored several relevant identities beyond class, and helped to
explain some important aspects of TAMs. For example, environmental issues
unite cross-class coalitions across the rural–urban and South–North
divides (Martinez-Torres and Rosset, 2010 ; McMichael, 2008 ; Peluso et al.,
2008 ; Wittman, 2009). This article builds on that existing knowledge, and
attempts to add to it by highlighting class, whilst being aware that a study
that looks solely into class dynamics will be unable to uncover all key dimensions
of TAM dynamics. A political economy framework will allow
us to better understand dynamic linkages between structural transformation
and rural politics, as demonstrated by Edelman (2008) for Central America.
This framework appropriately captures the nature, scope, pace and direction
of a process of social differentiation of the peasantry which is key to
understanding agrarian change — ‘change’ being the key context for and
object of TAMs’ politics. [6] This framework will facilitate a nuanced analysis
of the dynamic local–national mass base of TAMs. Some movements have
a relatively stable class character, such as those rooted in rural trade unions
which are based among permanently hired plantationworkers. In other cases,
the class character of a movement’s base may shift ; for instance a landless
movement starts with landless rural poor, with their distinct class interest
and politics, but once they get their lands and convert them into individual
family farms, their class character and politics are transformed — despite
having remained in the same (‘landless’) movement. A movement internalizes
dynamic changes such as these, which are fraught with contradictions.
It also internalizes the class character of members, many of whom belong to multiple class categories as they combine multiple sources of livelihoods.
These dynamics are in turn internalized within TAMs. A political economy
perspective can help capture these political dynamics.
With that in mind, the remainder of this article will examine the contexts
and conditions of the emergence of TAMs during the past two decades or so
and analyse the politics of representation, intermediation and mobilization ;
it will present a view from the Philippines to give a more concrete illustration
of the vertical alignment of TAMs.
