Unwritten Rule: State-Making through Land Reform in Cambodia

In 2012, Cambodia—an epicenter of violent land grabbing—announced a bold new initiative to develop land redistribution efforts inside agribusiness concessions. Alice Beban's Unwritten Rule focuses on this land reform to understand the larger nature of democracy in Cambodia.

Beban contends that the national land-titling program, the so-called leopard skin land reform, was first and foremost a political campaign orchestrated by the world's longest-serving prime minister, Hun Sen. The reform a...