Ato Kwanema Onoma opens his book with this statement: “The politics of property rights are vital to understanding the wider political economies of postcolonial African countries. State- and local level political struggles are almost always played out in the land arena” (p. 6). The book makes a strong argument that the reverse is equally true: Understanding the political economy is vital if we are to explain the politics of property in Africa, and anywhere else for that matter. Onoma's main query concerns why some political leaders in Africa create and strengthen institutions, such as title registries and land tribunals that secure property rights to land, while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist.
The author's key argument is that the political leaders' interests in land management depend on the nature of the benefits they derive from the land. In short, if benefits are derived from productive use (agriculture, forestry, mining, etc.), political leaders will have an interest in clear, transparent, practicable property rules and systems because such rules safeguard their private investments, and they will work to that end within the limits of their capacity. If, on the other hand, political leaders derive benefits from land primarily through land allocation—authorizing sales and concessions, granting settlement rights, resolving disputes, or executing evictions—they will prefer opaque property rules and systems because such rules will allow them to harvest rents as (arbitrary) arbiters. Onoma labels the latter form of benefit direct as it is not mediated by the productive use of the land, whereas benefits from land control through productive activities are labeled indirect. In this way, he takes on the classical property rights school argument, which, simply put, argues that scarcity will, eventually, produce clear, exclusive property rights institutions because it will lower transaction costs. As a property rights school revisionist, he says, “yes, but”: If the politically powerful benefit from the absence of strong institutions—that is, high transaction costs—clear rules may not materialize anytime soon. This is where the political economy perspective on politics and economics becomes useful: One's transaction cost becomes another's transaction income.
The theoretical argument is matched by empirical evidence from Ghana, Kenya, and Botswana, which the author collected in part through long-term fieldwork. The case on the Ghanaian chieftaincy demonstrates how chiefs have an interest in property's being weak, and their own discretionary power correspondingly strong. The Kenyan case, divided into “early” and “late” Kenya, demonstrates how the leading classes—depending on the productive capacity of land in the country's early history—worked to secure property rights, until their benefits from land became a political instrument, wielded with a high degree of discretion, not to say outright arbitrariness. In Botswana, by contrast, the government's ability to act independently of chiefs enabled it to secure a stronger set of property institutions than in most African countries.
The argument is appealing, yet as with all good research, it also invites debate—not just on findings, but on perspectives and concepts as well.
From Onoma's perspective, the book sets great store by the agency of politicians or political leaders in establishing and transforming property rights. This is important, as we sometimes see property and institutions described as preexisting artifacts. In reality, however, they are produced outcomes of social struggle. However, while policies are very important and political leaders active players—their “nuisance capacity” is considerable—they are not the only ones practicing politics, and therefore not the only ones producing institutions and property. The author shows how the efforts to establish land registries in Kenya were hijacked by con men who exploited the general public's desire for documentation. By issuance of thousands of fake deeds and so on, they undermined its public's confidence in the system. Yet, in general, the book pays little attention to on-the-ground systems of property in practice that, while outside official registration, may not constitute chaos. Unofficial sales, rentals, inheritances, informal mortgaging, and many other forms of transfers and transactions take place every day throughout Africa.
Onoma's distinction between direct and indirect benefits from land serves him well in the analysis. However, it also paints a picture of hard-working, honest men who seek clear rules, versus dishonest rentiers who thrive in the nebulous netherworld of anarchy. Admittedly, hard-working, honest men do exist, and dishonest rentiers are certainly also part of the sociopolitical fabric. And Onoma is not painting a banal picture of attitudes as he links these categories to economic opportunities. Nonetheless, his concepts tend to reinforce a binary in which only one or the other archetype could eventually prevail. However, while benefits can be direct and indirect, they are not as easily separable as the author seems to suggest. In fact, they make up the two dialectic components of property: “access” to the resource and “political authority” to grant or deny access to the resource. These dimensions of land control are inextricably linked. Access to land never occurs in a political vacuum. The claims of access to land by land users can be granted or denied by a political authority.
The questions then become: 1) What rights are guaranteed by what political authority, and 2) how secure, transparent, and durable are they? With Onoma's concepts, the first question tends to fall away, however. Instead, it is implied that we talk about private, exclusive, and fully alienable rights. In many cases, this is not to be taken for granted; it is exactly what is at stake. What is the extent of the rights bestowed upon a landowner? Are they fully alienable, or are they circumscribed by sets of conditions? Is a chief, or a chieftaincy, a landowner or a political institution guaranteeing ownership? In most African societies, these are empirical—and indeed political—questions. No doubt, chiefs (and other “stewards of property”) exploit the fuzziness of such distinctions, often trying to limit the contents of the rights they guarantee for land users by cloaking the limitations as “tradition.” This constitutes a “vertical tension” between rights claimants and political authorities. Stripping chiefs of the power to define the content of property rights and moving this function to an(other) governing institution does not make the vertical tension go away. It merely transplants it between land users and another political authority. Transferring authority from chiefs to other institutions is nonetheless often met with resistance. This produces a “horizontal tension” between authorities competing over jurisdiction. These are not exclusively “African” tensions but tensions integral to property itself.
The second question on security, transparency, and durability is addressed much more directly by Onoma, but in light of the first question, the answer here is often as much a function of institutional competition as it is a result of mischievous or inept design: Competing authorities often support different kinds of claims and hence protect—in fact, produce—different kinds of property rights.
The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa presents a welcome opportunity to discuss concepts like ownership and property, and the author's efforts to qualify the property rights school argument are illuminating. Linking property and its administration to the political economy and interests of society's most powerful groups endows the book with a fine heuristic quality, and other scholars of property and politics will be well advised to integrate some of Onoma's concerns in their work.
