Property Rights and Political Development in Ethiopia and Eritrea (review)

Property rights are a well-established domain within Ethiopian studies (Berhanou, Crummey, Hoben, Mantel-Niecko), yet it appears from this well-documented and thoughtfully-reasoned study that we still have much to learn. Joireman frames her account with reference to recent theories about the relationship between population growth and changes in property rights, and, within that nexus, about legal interventions on the part of the state, all this with reference to "economic development," broadly understood. Her case rests on forays into the court records of three administrative districts of Ethiopia—Eritrea, Sidamo, and Shoa—as it existed in the years between 1941 and 1974, chosen for the distinct trajectories of socioeconomic change, which they exhibit. These records have been little used; indeed no published monograph that uses them for any purpose comes to mind: yet they are a rich mine of social, cultural, and economic information. Their very existence is part of the process which Joireman explores: the growth of a state and its interests in and attempts to affect property rights, for systematic archival records in Ethiopia exist only from the restoration of Haile Sellassie in 1941, the documentary record for the entire period up to the Italian invasion of 1935 being much more episodic in nature. The literature holds Ethiopians to be notoriously litigious, so scholarly neglect of legal records is rather surprising, and is probably attributable to the disrepute in which many educated Ethiopians and foreign observers held the courts of the emperor's restored state, yet Ethiopians of all classes resorted to these courts to resolve numerous issues, land disputes (as Joireman demonstrates) prominent among them.

Joireman establishes just how dynamic relations involving land were in the Ethiopia of the three decades from 1941 to 1974. She demonstrates how differently the same state agenda and legal framework played out in her three case studies. The theory with which she is engaged holds that population growth leads inexorably toward individualization of property rights, and that individualization, in turn, promotes economic change and development. Theory tends to hold that this movement is spontaneous, but, as Joireman demonstrates, the intervention of the state, colonial Italian and imperial Ethiopian, was determinative in Eritrea and Sidamo, leading toward more communal rights in the former case and greater individualization in the latter. However, the results, in both cases, far from giving peasants greater space, led, in the Eritrean case, to social and economic constriction, and, in the Sidamo case, to radical inequality. Moreover, in northern Shoa, the same population growth led to "stasis in the tenure system" (p. 140). The political context, as set by the social relations of production, in each situation led to quite distinct outcomes, the interests of the historic Ethiopian nobility prevailing in Sidamo and Shoa, to produce divergent outcomes.

The case is well argued. In broad outline, it confirms—indeed, draws substantially on—previous studies of the general pattern of developments in Eritrea and Sidamo, but places our understanding on a firmer and more nuanced footing. Joireman's study of the northern Shoa district of Tegulat and Bulga is perhaps the most original empirical contribution, this area being as politically and culturally important as it has been neglected by empirical scholarship, with the notable exceptions of Levine, Pankhurst, and Stitz.

From the standpoint of the literature on Ethiopia, Joireman's study firmly establishes the value of court records for an understanding of social and political change. One suspects that these same records will yield equally valuable cultural insights.

In short, this is a valuable and welcome addition to the study of a country whose experiences have much to teach us about how the twentieth century really played out, for those placed far from the centers of global power.