Concluding Remarks: Toward a New Research Agenda

This chapter summarizes the book’s main findings and claims. Based on the analysis of the agricultural transformation of Taiwan, China (1950–1980); Ethiopia (1994–2020); the Philippines (1946–2020); and Malawi (1964–2020), the hypothesis that effective political leadership is necessary for successful agricultural transformation still stands. With this, this chapter aims to initiate a new research agenda, where the political economy of leaders is included as one important factor impacting agricultural transformation. The chapter proposes that integrating the role of leadership and its interaction with the socio-political system is a fruitful—indeed crucial—addition to the hitherto more common approach of focusing only on the sectoral structure of the economy in the process of an agricultural transformation.