This book makes a valuable contribution to the study of land tenure in Africa, addressing the long-standing debate over converting customary lands to statutory governance. Since the colonial era, this issue has been central to discussions about Africa's development. The topic has gained renewed attention in the wake of recent land tenure reforms. Despite repeated efforts to formalise land ownership through land titling, progress has been slow, and the vast majority of African land remains under customary tenure. Previous literature has primarily attributed the slow pace of this conversion to state-related factors. Within discussions on African states, the dominance of customary land tenure has often been seen as indicative of limited state capacity. Taking a different approach, this book delves into the societal mechanisms contributing to the resilience of African customary tenure systems.

The author argues that this resilience is maintained through two forms of accountability within local communities. The first is vertical accountability, exemplified by sanctions imposed by higher-ranking customary leaders on lower-ranking ones who deviate from the norms of retaining customary land tenure. The second is horizontal accountability, driven by peer pressure, which increases the cost of transitioning from customary to statutory land tenure systems. Customary communities are characterised by varying social statuses, with privileges unevenly distributed based on kinship, ethnicity, gender and other factors. Those with such privileges play a key role in enforcing peer pressure to advocate for customary land tenure, further raising the cost of land titling. Two case studies, from Zambia and Senegal, effectively support the author's argument that customary institutions create mechanisms that slow the transition to statutory land tenure through these two types of accountability. In both countries, smallholders with privileges tend to remain within the customary land tenure system because they have few incentives to register their parcels. The influence of customary institutions is evident in both contexts. Despite the contrasting policies pursued by the British and French regarding African land rights during the early colonial period, the mechanisms provided by customary institutions are strikingly similar in both countries, demonstrating their broad applicability. The research is well-designed and compellingly demonstrates how customary institutions influence people's landholding decisions. Supported by rigorous quantitative analysis, the book offers significant theoretical insights into the workings of customary land tenure systems and the resistance to land titling in Africa.

Although the book's contributions to the study of customary institutions are significant, it falls short in examining state-building processes. Compared to its thorough analysis of customary institutions and their influence on land titling, the book provides limited insight into how these institutions shape the concrete processes of state-building. The author treats land titling as a proxy for state-building, showing how customary institutions impede this process. However, in addition to the simplistic nature of the proxy, the extent to which the state-building efforts in Zambia and Senegal have been influenced by these institutions – and the similarities or differences between the two countries – remain unclear. Despite the book's subtitle, readers are left without a concrete understanding of how customary institutions shape state-building in Zambia and Senegal. Addressing this gap would require a more direct analysis of the state and state-building processes. Although the book focuses on micro-level societal factors within customary institutions, it should have also explored the connection between these institutions and macro-level politics. Such an analysis, although challenging, is necessary. The state itself may influence customary institutions, thus affecting the applicability of the book's insights. Both Zambia and Senegal have maintained relatively vibrant democracies and experienced electoral regime changes during the research period. These two case-study countries are similar in this respect, but customary institutions may interact differently with state-building processes in other contexts, such as authoritarian regimes. The relationship between customary institutions and macro-level national politics warrants further exploration.

The importance of this book in elucidating how customary institutions influence land titling cannot be overstated. Its insights will carry much broader and more profound implications when connected to macro-level analyses of African state-building.