ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book makes no attempt to deal with the theme as a whole, but is rather focused on a debate which has emerged in development studies over the last two decades. This debate is centred around the work of four scholars, notably Michael Lipton, but including also M. J. Mamalakis, Ashok Mitra and Robert Bates. First, in attempting to explain national level patterns of economic resource allocation within a political economy framework, they use the concept of economic sectors, mainly the rural/agricultural versus urban/industrial categorisation, to supplement and partly substitute for the more conventional class categorisation. Second, they suggest in varying degrees that the way in which sectoral conflicts influence the allocation of economic resources through state action has been the prime cause of slow rates of economic growth in developing countries since the Second World War.
