ABSTRACT

Any discussion of the 'rural economy' immediately raises a series of questions. What is meant by the term 'rural'? Is there a distinct 'rural economy'? And, more recently, what might constitute a 'sustainable rural economy'? This chapter seeks to address these issues, though the main concern is to develop a coherent approach to the study of the rural economy and consider the implications for the design of sustainable development policies. The approach is ambitious because it attempts to inform various social science perspectives on the 'rural'; particularly those of agricultural economics and rural sociology. This is not to deny the distinctive methodological and substantive interests of the individual sub-disciplines, but the term 'rural economy' does echo the holistic traditions of classical 'political economy' where the economic, social and political were treated in the round.