Closing The Gap: The Politics of Property Rights in Kenya

Politicians and scholars alike have advocated for land reform as a tool to address political instability and poverty. Yet in many cases of land reform, governments provide land but withhold property rights. Why do leaders withhold these rights, and when do they grant previously withheld rights? The authors argue that land rights are a distributive good that leaders relinquish conservatively and selectively to build popular support. Using microlevel data from Kenya—a country in which successive governments have distributed most of the country’s arable land through land reform—the article finds that leaders under democratic regimes are more willing to formalize rights than those under autocratic regimes. Further, the logic of land formalization changes with regime type. Whereas autocrats prioritize land formalization among core supporters, elites facing elections prioritize pivotal swing voters. The article demonstrates how the provision of property rights is primarily a function of political calculations rather than state capacity.