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Research ArticleArticle

Divergence in Rural Development

The Curious Case of Coffee Production in the Lake Kivu Region (First Half Twentieth Century)

SVEN VAN MELKEBEKE
African Economic History, November 2018, 46 (2) 117-146; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.46.2.117
SVEN VAN MELKEBEKE
Sven Van Melkebeke () is currently affiliated to Ghent University where he recently defended his PhD. His main research interests are the development of commodity frontiers, labor, rural, and environmental history.
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Abstract

This article offers new insight into the reasons for diversity in rural development and speaks to a major debate in economic history. The New Institutional Economy approach promotes the idea of long-term economic underdevelopment as a consequence of colonialism. However, this approach tends to over-generalize historical processes and over-simplify the reasons for divergence in development. Many historians have criticized such bold explanations. They stress that the diversity of local conditions and the varying reactions of people to colonialism and capitalism have resulted in different and regionally distinct paths of economic development. This article endorses such criticism and advances a complex multi-caused model in order to explain diversity in rural development. By highlighting and critically assessing several plausible explanations, this article argues that the development of coffee production in the Lake Kivu region primarily contrasted because of an interplay of differences in land availability (demography) and in indigenous precolonial landholding systems that were enhanced during the colonial period due to judicial differences (colony versus mandate).

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African Economic History: 46 (2)
African Economic History
Vol. 46, Issue 2
14 Nov 2018
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Divergence in Rural Development
SVEN VAN MELKEBEKE
African Economic History Nov 2018, 46 (2) 117-146; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.46.2.117

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Divergence in Rural Development
SVEN VAN MELKEBEKE
African Economic History Nov 2018, 46 (2) 117-146; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.46.2.117
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction: Why Do Rural Production Systems Differ?
    • Coffee in the Kivu Region
    • Explaining the Divergence
    • Conclusion: The Local Explains the Divergence
    • Acknowledgement
    • Appendix 1
    • Footnotes
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • References
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