The politics of agrarian reform: The state, nationalists and the agrarian question in the west of Ireland

Within social science views are divided between those who see smallholders as a class without a future (the 'transitionalists') and others (the 'survivalists') who regard this pessimism to be unwarranted. The possibility explored in this Irish case study is that the creation and survival of a viable smallholder class may depend crucially on sympathetic state intervention. The study focuses geographically on the west of Ireland during the period of transition from British to Irish rule, primarily between 1914 and 1950. The 'congested' west of Ireland is notable both for the interest of its nationalists in and the long-standing official commitment to redistributive land reform.;Two research questions are posed in the study: (1) Can the state's commitment to the smallholder ideal in Ireland, such as it was, be seen as a response to the pressure 'dominant' and 'subordinate' classes could exert from below or as the actions of state elites (governing politicians and senior administrative staff) as agents in their own right? (2) Did the state's redistributive state policy contribute to the creation and maintenance of a 'viable' smallholder class in Ireland?;My central claim is that the policy of redistributive agrarian reform that did emerge in Ireland was motivated more by the aim of relieving land hunger, landlessness and combating rural poverty than with the creation of a class of sturdy smallholders. This general pattern I seek to explain by reference to the scarcity of decent redistributable land relative to demand, the pressure members of the subordinate class were able to bring to bear, the dynamics of competition between nationalists, the different circumstances faced by politicians in opposition and in office and the absence of any coherent and widely held pro-smallholder populist ideology among nationalists and state elites.;Accepting a transitionalist interpretation of the Irish case, evidence is presented to indicate that the state, in what it did and failed to do, has been partly responsible for the progressive decline in the position of the western smallholder class.