The Politics of Land Reform in Africa: From Communal Tenure to Free Markets (review)

In this book Ambreena Manji explores the revival of interest in the role of law in bringing about development in fledgling economies. The author examines the trend in Africa since the 1980s of replacing customary land tenure with a Western type of legal registration process, and focuses on the on-going debate on land law reform and the implications of the new legislative changes for land tenure relations.

Neoliberals, echoing Hernado de Sato in The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (Basic Books, 2003), argue that the poor have remained poor because they have not registered land, while formalized land is bankable property, and therefore a source of capital. The advocates recommend formalization of land ownership as the only way to incorporate the poor into the legal system and enable them to participate in the free market where wealth is created.

Manji dismisses the neoliberal position on land law reform, and from her informed standpoint, argues that liberalization will have serious consequences by changing the way in which people relate to and perceive of land and their fellow landholders. Land law reform cannot succeed, for it has neglected critical issues of the difficulty of distributional choices that are entailed in any debate about land, especially in determining who gets what. Manji raises the questions of "what constitutes law," especially when neoliberals have characterized communal land tenure and informal tenure arrangements as passive, defective, and extralegal. To the author, the rule of law being promoted is an attempt to create a "universal template," which will impede economic, social, and political development since it ignores the workings of informal agreements and existing social controls.

Manji places the current situation in context by providing a synopsis of contemporary land reforms in Africa with a focus on historical processes through which law has come to prominence as a solution to developmental problems. The analysis also reveals how dynamics from local and international levels have pressured national governments into formulating new land laws over which they feel they have little sense of ownership, control, and implementation. The pressure from international sources follows the agenda of global financial institutions and bilateral donors to liberalize land tenure. These changes have come about with little resistance, because much of Africa still relies on development assistance.

To keep the debate alive, the author ends the book on a high note by bringing to the forefront issues for further research and debate, probable major struggles in the future: the implications of the change witnessed in land tenure in the form of privatization of land; the processes of marketing and financing land; and changing relations among families. The author predicts worsening gender relations and the deteriorating status of women, resulting from the promotion of formalization of land tenure and of formal rural credit markets.

Manji's accessible style should attract a wide readership from local to international levels. Those in academia will certainly find the book pertinent in guiding discussions on some of the setbacks to the achievement of sustainable development in African countries. This scholarly and very clearly written book communicates the main issues in land tenure transformation in Africa in a coherent and comprehensive way. The author introduces the on-going debate and provides us with the critical issues under contention before taking a stand on them. From her standpoint, the future will be bleak if neoliberal doctrine is unopposed.

The Politics of Land Reform in Africa: From Communal Tenure to Free Markets is a must read for any anyone interested in understanding the intertwined relationship between politics and land reform in Africa.