One, obviously, is the size of an identifiable peasantry, or the size of the rural
relative to the urban population. The other is a matter of social integration: for
agrarian parties to be important, the representation of countryside or peasantry
must not be integrated with the other major sections of society. Thus a country
might possess a sizeable rural population, but have an economic system in
which the interests of the voters were predominantly related to their incomes,
not to their occupations or location; and in such a country the political system
would be unlikely to include an important agrarian party. As agriculture has
come to employ a progressively smaller percentage of Western populations,
which concurrently become ever more urbanized, this sort of political party
has tended either to decline in importance or to broaden its appeal by shifts in
its policies. The politics of theThird Republicin France were, to a large
extent, based on an urban/ruralcleavageleading to at least semi-agrarian
parties. These declined rapidly in theFourth RepublicandFifth Republic
as the predominantly rural population turned into a predominantly urban one.
Similarly, the importance of agrarian parties in Scandinavian party systems,
once great, has declined.
In some countries, for example the USA, separate agrarian parties do not
exist because loose party structures have permitted the existence of identifiably
agrarian wings within parties, developed around other cleavages. (However, in
the 1880–1910 period some US states did have specific farmers’ parties, and
the Democratic Party in the state of Minnesota is still known as the Demo-
cratic-Farmer-Labor Party.)
Some commentators think that agrarian parties may return to prominence as
less developed economies integrate with highly urbanized economies in
organizations like theEuropean Union. Several agrarian parties were formed,
or revived, in the new multi-party democracies of Eastern Europe, reflecting
the larger agricultural labour forces and the relative lack of advanced methods
in those countries. Because agrarian interests tend to come into conflict with
more general economic policy, for example on questions of tariff levels and
free trade, the agrarian vote cannot be disregarded by governments. On a
global level, the problem of integrating primary producers with the largely
tertiary economic sectors of advanced societies is becoming acute, as witnessed
by problems in theGATTandWorld Trade Organizationnegotiations.
Aid to the Civil Power
This phrase is used to describe the role of the military in the United Kingdom
when called upon by the government to help out in some domestic emer-
gency. Such situations range along a spectrum from entirely peaceful to being
close to civil war. At one end can be essentially humanitarian actions, as in
providing emergency relief after a natural disaster. Somewhat in-between are
Aid to the Civil Power