Land Politics: How Customary Institutions Shape State Building in Zambia and Senegal

by Lauren Honig

Overview

Land Politics examines the struggle to control land in Africa through the lens of land titling in Zambia and Senegal. Contrary to standard wisdom portraying titling as an inevitable product of economic development, Lauren Honig traces its distinctly political logic and shows how informality is maintained by local actors. The book's analysis focuses on chiefs, customary institutions, and citizens, revealing that the strength of these institutions and an individual's position within them impact the expansion of state authority over land rights. Honig explores common subnational patterns within the two very different countries to highlight the important effects of local institutions, not the state's capacity or priorities alone, on state building outcomes. Drawing on evidence from national land titling records, qualitative case studies, interviews, and surveys, this book contributes new insights into the persistence of institutional legacies and the political determinants of property rights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009125772
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/21/2023
Pages:	381
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Lauren Honig is an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. Her research on property rights, citizen-state linkages, customary authority, and informal institutions in Africa has been published in numerous journals. She has received fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and Fulbright Association, among others.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Land Titling as State Building; 2. Plot by Plot: Customary Authority and The Incremental Expansion of State Property Rights in Africa; 3. Why Institutions Matter: A Theory of Collective Costs and Customary Constraints in Land Titling; 4. The Institutional Foundations of Land Authority in Zambia and Senegal; 5. The Unofficial Differences Among Official Chiefs in Zambia: Vertical Accountability and Patterns of Land Titling; 6. Holding Ground in Senegal: Horizontal Accountability, Institutional Legacies, and the Continuation of Customary Property Rights; 7. Exit or Engagement: How Status within Institutions Impacts Smallholder Titling; 8. Conclusion: The Resilience of Customary Institutions and Property Rights, Beyond State Design.

Editorial Reviews

‘The drama of African politics is increasingly a story of fierce competition over land, especially as states attempt to wrest control from customary authorities. In this carefully-crafted book, Lauren Honig shows that even across divergent contexts, longstanding institutions continue to shape and to constrain the realization of such ambitions, with important distributional consequences for citizens. With a wealth of empirical evidence based on extensive original data collection, Land Politics details the ways in which institutions affect the balance of power, and the likelihood of citizens engaging the state or local chiefs to advance their interests. This ambitious volume is a must-read for understanding the political economy of land in Africa.’ Evan S. Lieberman, Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa, Director, Global Diversity Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

‘Honig’s superb book advances scholarship on land politics and customary leadership by theorizing and demonstrating how variation within traditional political institutions matters. Based on original qualitative and quantitative evidence from both Anglophone and Francophone Africa, the book is an exemplar of field research in comparative politics.’ Kate Baldwin, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University

‘Honig’s book makes an innovative theoretical contribution to our understanding of how customary institutions shape state building from the ground up in very different ways. In a fascinating comparison of Zambia and Senegal, she investigates different pathways of accountability during the complex local-level negotiations over land titles. Her analysis and arguments are powerfully enriched by a rigorous case comparison and extensive, multi-method fieldwork.’ Lauren M. MacLean, Department Chair, Political Science, Indiana University

‘‘Land Politics’ offers a rich menu for everyone interested in land. To have the empirical details of two major cases in one book is a significant accomplishment, and so is the insight on the power of both formal (Zambia) and informal (Senegal) institutions.’ Franklin Obeng-Odoom, Perspectives on Politics

From the Publisher