Land Reform and Agrarian Socialism in Interwar Europe Evidence from Spain Before Civil War

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of various types of land reform on the voting of the rural poor in 1930s Spain, using municipal electoral results in a region with intense but heterogeneous land reforms. Permanent transfers of land had the greatest impact of voting followed by the interventions to alleviate seasonal unemployment. Poorly planned interventions without adequate funding had the opposite result, probably making the landless more vulnerable to landowner control. The results show that the secret ballot might not be enough to guarantee the free voting of financially dependent landless laborers. It also shows that land reforms without adequate support for beneficiaries might backfire.

Keywords: N54, O13, P14, Q10, Q24, Q28