Property and constitutional order: Land tenure reform and the future of the African state
The author is Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, A1800, Austin, Texas, USA, 78712 (cboone{at}mail.la.utexas.edu).
The debate over land law reform in Africa has been framed as a referendum on the market – that is, as a debate pitting advocates of the growth-promoting individualization of property rights against those who call for protecting the livelihoods and subsistence rights of small farmers. This article argues that the prospect of land law reform also raises a complex bundle of constitutional issues. In many African countries, debates over land law reform are turning into referenda on the nature of citizenship, political authority, and the future of the liberal nation state itself. The article describes alternative land reform scenarios that are currently under debate, and identifies the constitutional implications of each. The practical salience of the issues is illustrated through reference to land reform politics in Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, South Africa, and Tanzania.
This article was presented as a paper at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (Wardman Park Marriott, Washington, DC, 2 September 2005), and the 2006 annual meeting of the African Studies Association, 17 November 2006 (San Francisco Westin, San Francisco, CA). It grew out of discussions held at the Social Science Research Council Regional Advisory Panel (SSRC RAP) for Africa ‘Planning Meeting on Citizenship’, 27 September 2003, in Amsterdam. I thank the West Africa Research Centre in Dakar for logistical support, and interviewees in Dakar in July 2004 and July–August 2005 for helpful discussions. Jesse Ribot and Sandra Joireman, along with anonymous reviewers, provided thoughtful and useful comments.