Why do some rebel insurgencies target cities as economic prey, whilst others are content to trade with them? This volume examines how the trade networks underpinning the economic relationship between rural and urban areas differ in their impact on (and response to) the combat frontier.

This dissertation occupies the intersection between the fields of International Development, Political Economy, and Peace & Conflict Studies to examine how economic networks spanning the rural-urban divide condition conflict dynamics between an urban-based state and its rural-based challengers. In some cases of such violent internal conflict, the combat frontier is messy and erratic, as insurgents target cities as their economic prey. In other cases, the combat frontier is tidy and stable, seemingly representing an equilibrium in which cities are effectively protected from violent non-state actors. What accounts for these divergent outcomes? This question bears special importance in an era characterized by increasingly eroded capacity of states to exercise the famous Weberian monopoly on the use of coercive force. To explore this question, I did fieldwork in two regions representing these different outcomes. In West Africa (Liberia and Sierra Leone), capital cities became economic targets for rebels, who posed dire threats to the survival of the state. In Maoist India, despite an insurgent ideology aiming to overthrow the state via city capture, the combat frontier effectively firewalls cities from Maoist violence. I interviewed firm managers, traders, and, where possible, locals at risk for rebel recruitment. I employed formal modeling, and qualitative (semi-structured interviews, coding) and quantitative (multivariate and logistic regression) methods to analyze, first, the effects of violence on the structure of rural-urban trade networks, and second, the effects of trade network morphology on the structure of the combat frontier itself. I found that the trade networks that underpin the economic relationship between rural and urban areas may differ dramatically in their response to, and effect on, the combat frontier, depending on what type of underlying social structure they are based upon. Those based upon ranked, or hierarchical, social structures, were structured in such a way as to facilitate elite-elite trade deals between urban-based traders and rebel commanders that benefited the rural insurgents. By contrast, those based upon unranked, or egalitarian, social structures tended to disallow this sort of deal structure, concentrating profits in urban areas, destabilizing the combat frontier, and further incentivizing the targeting of cities. This study then seeks to recast dynamics of violent internal conflict as a dialectic relationship between intensification (production, often in state-controlled urban areas) and extensification (predation, often in rebel-held rural areas). It attempts to reconcile the opposing views that Development processes both drive and undermine violent conflict, and suggests that, in the absence of a monopoly on the use of coercive force, the state may benefit from geographic containment of competitive force by way of these "interstitial economies."

This sixth edition of Cities, Change, and Conflict features a new, groundbreaking chapter on the relationship between the physical environment and human settlements, including the urban-rural nexus.

First published in 1984. It is widely acknowledged that rural-urban differences and interrelationships play an important role in the development process. Some theorists believe they are a primary cause of continuing poverty in poor nations. This volume of essays summarises and appraises theories of rural-urban relations and economic development and explores, mainly on the basis of country case studies, the conceptual and theoretical problems to which they give rise, and the extent to which they correspond to recent experiences in the Third World.

A prizewinning political scientist traces the origins of urban-rural political conflict and shows how geography shapes elections in America and beyond Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Many place exclusive blame on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. But as political scientist Jonathan A. Rodden demonstrates in Why Cities Lose, the left's electoral challenges have deeper roots in economic and political geography. In the late nineteenth century, support for the left began to cluster in cities among the industrial working class. Today, left-wing parties have become coalitions of diverse urban interest groups, from racial minorities to the creative class. These parties win big in urban districts but struggle to capture the suburban and rural seats necessary for legislative majorities. A bold new interpretation of today's urban-rural political conflict, Why Cities Lose also points to electoral reforms that could address the left's under-representation while reducing urban-rural polarization.

Kleniewski s text discusses the importance of cities for the economic, cultural, and political life of modern societies. The author consistently uses the political economy perspective to introduce students to the basic concepts and research in urban sociology, while also acknowledging the contributions of the human ecology perspective. Through the use of case studies, the presentation remains accessible and down-to-earth.