Community Politics and Peasant-State Relations in Paraguay

This work studies the political behavior of peasants in four Paraguayan communities that were selected to measure the influence of two variables on political behavioróeconomic location and the history of elite-peasant relationships. The author discusses the impact of both capitalist development and local history on community political responses. He addresses their efforts to obtain and secure access to land, agricultural policies, defense and abuse, and respect for the peasant ideal of social relationships. Turner concludes that local history is the strongest determining variable in discerning which communities are more likely to achieve relative political efficacy.