Property and Political Order in Africa: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

In sub-Saharan Africa, property relationships around land and access to natural resources vary across localities, districts, and farming regions. These differences produce patterned variations in relationships between individuals, communities, and the state. This book captures these patterns in an analysis of structure and variation in rural land tenure regimes. In most farming areas, state authority is deeply embedded in land regimes, drawing farmers, ethnic insiders and outsiders, lineages, villages, and communities into direct and indirect relationships with political authorities at different levels of the state apparatus. The analysis shows how property institutions - institutions that define political authority and hierarchy around land - shape dynamics of great interest to scholars of politics, including the dynamics of land-related competition and conflict, territorial conflict, patron-client relations, electoral cleavage and mobilization, ethnic politics, rural rebellion, and the localization and "nationalization" of political competition. 1. Introduction : Property Regimes And Land Conflict : Seeing Institutions And Their Effects -- Land Tenure Regimes And Political Order In Rural Africa -- Rising Competition For Land : Redistribution And Its Varied Political Effects -- Ethnic Strangers As Second-class Citizens. Ethnic Heterogeneity In Western Burkina Faso -- Expulsion Of Aliens From Ghana's Cocoa Region -- Land Tensions In Western Ghana. -- Ethnic Strangers As Protected Clients Of The State. Southwestern Côte D'ivoire : Strangers Imposed By Force! -- Kenya's Rift Valley Settlers -- Forced Cohabitation In Eastern Drc. -- Land Conflict At The Micro-scale : Family. Western Kenya : Kisii. -- Chieftaincy : The Local State As Arena Of Redistributive Conflict. Northern Cameroon : States Within The State -- Conflict Repressed Within Chieftaincies : Periurban Kumasi, Ghana. Land Conflict At The National Scale. Rwanda. -- Winning And Losing Politically-allocated Land Rights. Kenya Since 1991-2010 -- Côte D'ivoire : 1990-2010 -- Rwanda, 1991-4 -- Eastern Drc, 1990-4. -- Zimbabwe In Comparative Perspective. Elections And Expropriations, 2000-2010. Conclusion : Property Regimes In Political Explanation. Property Regimes In Comparative Politics -- Economic Institutions And Democracy -- Patrimonialism Vs. Bargained Institutions -- Ethnicity As A State Effect -- Ethnicity And Class Politics -- Scale Effects In Political Explanation. -- Epilogue : Rising Pressure On The Land. Catherine Boone. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 351-408) And Index. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Series Page 4 Title Page 6 Copyright 7 Dedication 8 Epigraph 9 Table of Contents 10 List of Figures, Tables and Maps 12 Preface and Acknowledgments 14 1 Introduction: Property Regimes and Land Conflict: Seeing Institutions and Their Effects 18 Part I. Property Rights and the Structure of Politics 34 2 Land Tenure Regimes and Political Order in Rural Africa 36 3 Rising Competition for Land: Redistribution and Its Varied Political Effects 69 Part II. Ethnicity: Property Institutions and Ethnic Cleavage 108 4 Ethnic Strangers as Second-Class Citizens 117 5 Ethnic Strangers as Protected Clients of the State 144 Part III. Political Scale: Property Institutions and the Scale and Scope of Conflict 194 6 Land Conflict at the Micro-Scale: Family 205 7 The Local State as an Arena of Redistributive Conflict: Chieftaincy 217 8 Land Conflict at the National Scale: Rwanda 246 Part IV: Multiparty Competition: Elections and the Nationalization of Land Conflict 270 9 Winning and Losing Politically Allocated Land Rights: Property Conflict in the Electoral Arena 277 10 Zimbabwe in Comparative Perspective 313 11 Conclusion: Property Institutions in Political Explanation 326 Appendix: Land Politics Cases and Sources 350 References 368 Index 426 In sub-Saharan Africa, property relationships around land and access to natural resources vary across localities, districts and farming regions. These differences produce patterned variations in relationships between individuals, communities and the state. This book analyzes the politics of land and the use of natural resources in Africa.