Wind from the east: Soviet aid and radical land reform in developing countries

What explains radical land reforms in developing countries? While existing literature primarily attributes land reform to domestic factors, we introduce an international dimension by examining how Soviet intervention in the Third World influenced the dynamics of land reforms during the Cold War. We argue that Soviet economic aid encouraged radical land reform through two mechanisms: diffusing socialist norms and providing material resources. We illustrate these mechanisms with case narratives on land reforms in Ghana and Indonesia. Drawing on a novel dataset of Soviet aid and land reforms, we find that higher levels of Soviet aid correlate with an increased likelihood of radical land reform enactment, even after controlling for alternative explanations and measurement strategies. To further support our argument, we leverage Gorbachev’s rise to power as a sudden shock, demonstrating a marked decline in radical land reforms among Soviet-dependent countries after the policy shift in 1985. These findings contribute to understanding foreign aid’s impact on domestic policy, highlighting how Cold War dynamics shaped social transformations in the developing world, with implications for contemporary studies on international influence in domestic reform policies.