Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan (Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society)

Although today's richest countries tend to have long histories of secure private property rights, legal-titling projects do little to improve the economic and political well-being of those in the developing world. This book employs a historical narrative based on secondary literature, fieldwork across thirty villages, and a nationally representative survey to explore how private property institutions develop, how they are maintained, and their relationship to the state and state-building within the context of Afghanistan. In this predominantly rural society, citizens cannot rely on the state to enforce their claims to ownership. Instead, they rely on community-based land registration, which has a long and stable history and is often more effective at protecting private property rights than state registration. In addition to contributing significantly to the literature on Afghanistan, this book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on property rights and state governance from the new institutional economics perspective. Dedication Contents List of Photographs and Drawings List of Maps List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Glossary List of Abbreviations Chronology of Events 1 Introduction 2 A Theory of Property Rights 3 Property Rights and State Building 4 Property Rights and War 5 Self-governance of Property Rights 6 Self-governance, War, and the Commons 7 Self-governance, Legal Titling, and the State 8 Are Property Rights a Cause or Consequence of Political Order? Appendix References Index This book explains how people define and enforce property rights when they cannot rely on the government to do so, why governments are unable or unwilling to recognize property rights, and why legal titling is unable to improve economic livelihoods in fragile states.