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Major land reform programs have reallocated property in more than one-third of the world's countries in the last century and impacted over one billion people. But only rarely have these programs granted beneficiaries complete property rights. Why is this the case, and what are the consequences? This book draws on wide-ranging original data and charts new conceptual terrain to reveal the political origins of the property rights gap. It shows that land reform programs are most often implemented by authoritarian governments who deliberately withhold property rights from beneficiaries. In so doing, governments generate coercive leverage over rural populations and exert social control. This is politically advantageous to ruling governments but it has negative development consequences: it slows economic growth, productivity, and urbanization and it exacerbates inequality. The book also examines the conditions under which subsequent governments close property rights gaps, usually as a result of democratization or foreign pressure.
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. Conceptualizing and Measuring the Property Rights Gap; 3. The Political Origins of the Property Rights Gap; 4. Evidence on the Rise and Fall of Property Rights Gaps in Latin America; 5. Consequences of the Property Rights Gap; 6. Opening and Closing a Property Rights Gap in Peru; 7. The Long-Term Consequences of Peru's Property Rights Gap; 8. Property Rights Gaps Around the World; 9. Conclusion.
About the author
Michael Albertus is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of the award-winning book Autocracy and Redistribution (Cambridge, 2015) and Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy (Cambridge, 2018). Albertus also writes regularly for popular outlets such as New York Times, Washington Post, and Foreign Policy.
Summary
Incomplete rural property rights are endemic throughout most of the developing world. This book explores the political origins of this lack of rights and how it negatively impacts rural autonomy and development outcomes such as economic growth, inequality, urbanization, education, and the links between political parties and voters.
