The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa

$122.00 (C)

Author: Ato Kwamena Onoma, Yale University, Connecticut

Date Published: December 2009
availability: Available
format: Hardback
isbn: 9780521765718

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Description

Why do some political leaders create and strengthen institutions like title registries and land tribunals that secure property rights to land while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist? How do these institutions evolve once they have been established? This book answers these questions through spatial and temporal comparison of national and subnational cases from Botswana, Ghana, and Kenya and, to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe. Onoma argues that the level of property rights security that leaders prefer depends on how they use land. However, the extent to which leaders’ institutional preferences are translated into actual institutions depends on the level of leaders’ capacity. Further, once established, these institutions through their very working can contribute to their own decline over time. This book is unique in revealing the political and economic reasons why some leaders unlike others prefer an environment of insecure rights even as land prices increase.
- Combines explanations of institutional choice and institutional change, addressing both property rights and historical institutionalism
- Employs qualitative research methods, combining temporal with spatial analysis and national with subnational units of analysis.
- Provides an original theory on the topic of land policy that questions conventional wisdom and conclusions by previous scholars
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Product details
- Date Published: December 2009
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521765718
- length: 246 pages
- dimensions: 235 x 160 x 20 mm
- weight: 0.48kg
- contains: 3 maps 3 tables
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Divergent attitudes towards property rights institutions
2. Explaining institutional choice and change
3. Varying responses by Ghanian and Batswanaian state leaders
4. Traditional leaders take charge in Akyem Abuakwa and Ga
5. Making and then unmaking institutions in Kenya
6. Endogenous contributions to institutional change
7. Conclusion
Appendix: notes on field research.
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Author
Ato Kwamena Onoma, Yale University, Connecticut
Ato Onoma is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University. After receiving his PhD from Northwestern University, he was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. His was featured in Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, a collection of essays edited by James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen (Cambridge, 2010).