URBAN BIAS IN PERSPECTIVE - INTRODUCTION

Under what conditions might urban bias erode? Are those conditions ent irely uncommon? Or is it that our customary understanding was wrong in several key respects? These are the questions underlying this volume. To express our vantage point clearly, the papers focus on the conditi ons under which the countryside is not 'squeezed'. Four critiques of t he urban bias theory emerge, three of which are new. First, the urban bias theory neglects political institutions. The urban bias outcome is not true across political systems (democracy versus authoritarianism) , or across ideological orientations of the ruling elite (pro-rural or pro-industrial). Second, the urban bias theory did not anticipate how technical change over time could begin to make the rural sector power ful. Third, the conception of how rural interests are expressed in pol itics is limited in urban bias theory to the strictly economic issues. Ethnic (and religious) identities may cut across the rural and urban sectors, and may obstruct an economic expression of rural interests mo re than the power of the city. Finally, as pointed out earlier a speci al issue of this journal on urban bias, the urban-rural boundaries may at times be hard to detect.