I am thinking of groups such as the Tanka in southern China and Kazakhs in the USSR. I am aware of James Scott's explanation that it is largely a way of exerting control and making the groups "legible" to the central government, but I am curious about other explanations. Also, how did the programs work in practice, and how much coercion did they use (the carrot:stick ratio)?
In the United States and Canada, there are ample examples of this practice as well. One of the examples I like to use is that of Anaktuvuk Pass, which was settled in the late 1940s and got its post office in 1951. Margaret Blackman's Upside Down: Seasons Among the Nunamiut has a good description of the process.
In short, Bush pilot Sig Wien regularly flew from Fairbanks to the Brooks Range country north of the Arctic Circle. In 1943, he landed on Chandler Lake in the Range to refuel. While dumping gas into his plane's fuel tanks (he carried jerrycans to extend his range), he ran into Simon Paneak, one of the nomadic Nunamiut who were camped at the north end of the lake.
The two worked out a trading relationship, whereby Paneak would order from the Alaska Commercial Company in Fairbanks, and Wien would serve as intermediary, trading furs for manufactured goods. On one of the trips in the late 1940s, Paneak mentioned to Wien that the Nunamiut would like to settle in a permanent place where their kids could get educations and where they might gather to worship.
Wien contacted the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which arranged for teachers. These arrived in 1947, teaching from tents at Tulugak Lake in the Anaktuvuk Valley, where the Nunamiut had camped for the summer.
These teachers were followed by scientists interested in studying the biology of the valley, a trader who built a small trading post, and then the application for a post office in 1951.
This was a fairly typical chain of events in rural Alaska, though the order may differ. Typically, there was a drive to abandon seasonal fish camps in favor of a permanent settlement in order to get better access to traders, be close to a government school or clinic, or because there was a post office nearby that would allow easy trading of furs and manufactured goods.
Along the coast, whaling stations like Wales, Point Hope and Barrow were loci for settlement.
In the middle to late 20th century, people were attracted (and still are -- rural flight is a significant issue in Alaska) to settled areas by the prospect of easy access to medical care and shopping. The Indian Health Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools were of particular interest in Native Alaska, because in most cases, these were the only facilities able to provide health care or education in a several hundred square mile area.