Synopses & Reviews
In Sub-Saharan Africa, property rights law is an especially potent source of instability. As the worldwide post-Cold War era trend toward state-run property rights expansion clashes with longstanding customs and what many would consider bureaucratic incapacity, conflicts are inevitable. Many advocates from NGOs have argued that the region's manifold governance problems stem at least in part from the state's inability to enforce property rights. Instead, 'private' property rights regimes, largely independent of the state, have flourished.
In recent years, there has, in fact, been a concerted effort to create stronger property rights laws, and in Where There is No Government, Sandra Joireman traces how this has played out in Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya. The problem is that while new, better laws might now be on the books, they effectively do not exist if they are not enforced--a fact that causes major problems for development. Those who possess land cannot legally prove it's theirs, and those who are often culturally prohibited from owning property, like women and migrants, have trouble exercising their legal rights to property.
While there are those who may argue that African understandings of property law are relatively efficient and adaptable because they have evolved organically, Joireman contends that this view discounts one very likely possibility--that such systems are in fact predatory and favor elites. Operating from this assumption, she employs a series of novel measures to determine which types of property regimes promote social welfare and which hinder it. She concludes that while the sub-Saharan states usually have a monopoly over the use of force, they typically do not have control over property law. Bowing to customary understandings of property, they have largely ceded it to private actors (many of whom are criminal). If Africa is to develop in a manner that promotes broad social well being, a legalistic approach is inadequate--changes in statutes and laws are not enough. State institutions must be able and willing to enforce property rights if development is to occur. Where There is No Government is at once an authoritative and powerful account of this central dilemma in Africa, and a prescription for addressing it.
Review
"While central to the continent's future, land rights in Africa are difficult to study. Sandra Joireman provides a framework within which she successfully applies it to a series of important cases. The result is a book that is thoughtful, penetrating, and informative."--Robert Bates, Professor of Government, Harvard University
"Sandra Joireman's book exposes the fallacy of legalism in settings where central states are unwilling or unable to enforce the property rights that exist in public or statute law. This book will be welcomed eagerly by both scholars and practitioners. Joireman's clear logic and exposition opens the door to a topic-property rights and local-level governance-that has often been regarded as bewilderingly complex."--Catherine Boone, Professor of Government, University of Texas-Austin
"In a short, concise, and insightful study, [Joireman] seamlessly weaves her fieldwork with framework of theory and academic precedents to explain the dichotomy between state and nonstate actors in dealing with property rights where legal administration is missing and traditional authorities inadequate. ...Highly reommended."--CHOICE
Synopsis
It is safe to say that a sizeable majority of the world's population would agree with the proposition that that property rights are important for political and social stability as well as economic growth. But what happens when the state fails to enforce such rights? Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, this is in fact an endemic problem.
In Where There is No Government, Sandra Joireman explains how weak state enforcement regimes have allowed private institutions in sub-Saharan Africa to define and enforce property rights. After delineating the types of actors who step in when the state is absent--traditional tribal leaders, entrepreneurial bureaucrats, NGOs, and violent groups--she argues that the institutions they develop can be helpful or predatory depending on their incentives and context. Because such institutions are neither inherently good nor inherently bad, Joireman develops a set of measurement criteria to assess which types of property regimes and enforcement mechanisms are helpful and which are harmful to social welfare.
By focusing on the varieties of property rights enforcement in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, Joireman moves beyond simply evaluating the effectiveness of official property rights laws. Provocatively, she also challenges the premise that changes in property law will lead to changes in property rights on the ground. Indeed, states that change their property laws face challenges in implementation when they do not control the authority structures in local communities. Utilizing original research on the competitors to state power in Sub-Saharan Africa and the challenges of providing secure and defensible property rights, Where There is No Government is a sharp analysis of one of the most daunting challenges facing the African subcontinent today.
About the Author
Sandra F. Joireman is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Wheaton College, and editor of
Church, State, and Citizen (OUP 2009).
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Colonization and the Myth of the Customary
3. "Under the Circumstances, We Do What We Can": Entrepreneurial Bureaucrats and the Allocation of Property Rights
4. Property Rights Enforcement by Other Means: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations
5. Private Enforcement of Property Rights: The Demand for Specialists in Violence
6. In Search of Order: State Systems of Property Rights Enforcement and their Failings
7. Drawing Conclusions
8. Bibliography
9. Appendix