The Urban-Rural Divide in Historical Political Economy

Abstract

Abstract This chapter returns to some classic questions posed by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan in the 1960s. When and where is an urban-rural divide in political behavior most likely to emerge? Once established, why does it deepen in some countries at some times, while dissipating in others? After discussing efforts to conceptualize and measure the urban-rural divide since the rise of mass franchise democracy and presenting some time series data from the last 140 years in Germany and the United States, the chapter examines explanations for variation across time and space that are rooted in (1) economic geography, (2) social and cultural divisions, and (3) political institutions and the nationalization of politics. The chapter explores the idea that the urban-rural divide is driven by efforts of party elites to assemble packages of platforms on policy dimensions for which voters’ preferences are correlated with population density. In addition to establishing some stylized facts and reviewing existing contributions, this chapter attempts to provide a road map for theoretical and empirical studies that lie ahead.