Cattle, Diamonds and Institutions: Main Drivers of Botswana’S Economic Development, 1850 to Present

Home , History of Botswana

Journal of International Development J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) Published online 24 September 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jid.2957

CATTLE, DIAMONDS AND INSTITUTIONS: MAIN DRIVERS OF BOTSWANA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 1850 TO PRESENT

ELLEN HILLBOM* Lund University, Department of Economic History, Lund, Sweden

Abstract: This study investigates the role of political as well as economic institutions, factor endowments and geography as main drivers of change in Botswana’s long-term economic development, from 1850 to the present. The claim that we need to embrace multi-causal explanations giving equal explanatory value to all mentioned potential drivers is made. Further, in order not to compress history, we should give equal attention to the pre-colonial, colonial and post- independence eras. The study leads by example and provides a thorough analysis that enriches our understanding of the country’s past and present. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: Botswana; economic history; economic development; institutions; factor endowments; geography

1 INTRODUCTION

Identifying what factors drive long-term continuity and change in trajectories of economic growth and development is a perpetual and central issue within economic history. Theoretically, the interaction between institutions as the rules of the game and the pre- conditions for playing the game, in the form of geography (including natural resources) and factor endowments, has generally been understood as a multi-causal relationship (North, 1990; Herbst, 2000; Austin, 2008; van der Ploeg, 2011). Empirically, the intricate puzzle has been in what way these factors interact and under what conditions one factor can temporarily dominate and be the prime mover of change in a speciﬁc historical setting. Over the last decade, however, we have seen an increasing polarization in the theoretical debate as some scholars have claimed consistently superior explanatory values for either

*Correspondence to: Ellen Hillbom, Lund University, Department of Economic History, Lund, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 156 E. Hillbom political institutions (e.g. Acemoglu et al., 2001, 2002) or geography (e.g. Sachs, 2012). This polarization has dominated much of the recent literature on historical explanations for the presence or absence of economic growth and development in developing countries. The shift in theory has affected the scholarly debate broadly, and the literature on Botswana’s impressive post-independence growth trajectory is a poignant example of that trend. Some researchers have claimed that the growth miracle is based on the presence of good political institutions with their roots in pre-colonial structures (Acemoglu et al., 2003; Beaulier and Subrick, 2006; Iimi, 2006; Robinson and Parsons, 2006; Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012), whereas others have argued that the success story can foremost be explained by a successful extraction of diamonds in the post-independence era (Jerven, 2010; van der Ploeg, 2011; Sachs, 2012). The overriding ambition of this article is to return to multi-causal explanations, giving equal explanatory value to political and economic institutions, geography and factor endowments. Here, the broad theoretical framework is applied to the case of Botswana; however, it is universal and could guide any study searching for a speciﬁc causal relationship between main drivers of long-term economic growth and development. We give equal attention to the pre-colonial, colonial and post-independence eras, thereby gaining a long-term perspective without compressing history. To identify and capture signiﬁcant structural continuity and change, the study is divided into three periods: 1850–1930, 1930–1975 and 1975 to the present. This periodization opens up a dynamic analysis based on empirical evidence, demonstrating how the history of the multi-causal interaction of institutions and pre-conditions matters.

2 COMPETING OR COMPLEMENTING EXPLANATORY MODELS?

Until the 1970s, most economists had fundamental positive expectations about natural resource abundance. Hirschman (1958) argued that in a small economy dominated by a high value natural resources, there are generally few linkages to other productive sectors or to the economy at large and that this deficiency can be countered by active state policies to transfer resources to stagnating sectors. However, in the decades after World War II, empirical evidence from many newly independent developing countries rich in natural resources has provided examples of corrupt and even predatory dictatorial leaders, profiteering multi-national companies and financial policies unable to control exchange rates and inflation. This caused economists to consider natural resources as a curse rather than a blessing (Leite and Weidmann, 1999), and they could even demonstrate that there was generally a negative correlation between natural resource abundance and economic growth (Sachs and Warner, 1995; van der Ploeg, 2011). Botswana, however, has been an exception to this rule, and Jerven (2010) has recently shown that there is an undisputable correlation between the economic growth trajectory from independence in 1966 to the present and diamond production which started in 1967. Although other sections of the mining industry have not been successful, it is clear that access to a high value natural resource has been beneficial for economic growth (Iimi, 2006). Closely related to this ongoing debate on the role of natural resource abundance has been that of the role of the geographic space and climate in long-term economic growth (Bloom and Sachs, 1998; Landes, 1998: Chapter 1). These debates are of relevance for the present case study as diamond deposits as well as climatic conditions for agriculture have shaped opportunities for production in Botswana. Part of this debate is also the issue

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid Cattle, Diamonds and Institutions 157 of location, more specifically if a country, such as Botswana, is land-locked which in theory is to be at particular disadvantage as transport costs for international trade are high (Gallup et al., 1999). However, this disadvantage must be seen in relation to the natural characteristics of products that are being exported: diamonds are easy and cheap to transport under any conditions. Problems of managing natural resource abundance have during the last decade caused the theoretical pendulum to swing over to a focus on the role of institutions generally and political institutions in particular. The most prominent representatives of this new school within historical economics have been Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (AJR) who claim that political institutions is the universally most important factor in explaining long-term economic progress as well as failure. To them, good political institutions are the equivalence of effective, or private, property rights and will promote production. The opposite is the development hindering extractive institutions which are signified by a majority of the population facing a high risk of expropriation by the authorities (Acemoglu et al., 2001). Colonies experienced a ‘reversal of fortune’ as Europeans tended to settle and introduce private property rights institutions in areas characterized by economically poor indigenous societies, low population density and low settler mortality; whereas high settler mortality in originally wealthy societies with a high population density and high settler mortality motivated colonial powers to establish extractive institutions (Acemoglu et al., 2002). Critics have, however, pointed out that it is questionable whether AJR’sdataareableto explain either the historical trajectories or the current pathways of development in Africa. Concerns are numerous: (i) the quality of the historical evidence on which the wealth of African economies is assessed; (ii) a biassed selection of data; (iii) the disregard of the role of African agency; (iv) the compression of history; (v) the over-simplification of potential development paths open to the various colonies; and (vi) the lack of distinction between the various forms of colonial rule (Austin, 2008; Hopkins, 2009; Albouy, 2012). Despite this critique, AJR’s institutional argument continues to be presented as generally and globally applicable. It is used as a basis for research focusing on identifying the colonial legacy of development inhibiting institutions as the key to understand African economic history. Although AJR have themselves pointed out that Botswana does not fit their general reversal of fortune theory and in many respects is an exception to their overall findings, they still claim that it is the development of effective institutions that explains the current economic success story. Limited British colonial influence allowed for the survival of tribal, pre-colonial institutions, which ensured leaders’ accountability and broad-based political participation. After independence, the vested interests of the economic as well as the political elites in the cattle sector and the presence of wise post-independence political leaders ensured prudent management of diamond incomes. Robinson and Parsons (2006) have similarly argued that in the midst of general neo-patrimonialism, state failure and poor governance in sub-Saharan Africa, Botswana, has managed to develop the region’s only legal-rational state. Their explanations resemble those of AJR as they refer to the restricted political power of the Tswana chiefs during the pre-colonial era and how that resulted in inclusive political structures, including the incorporation of various ethnic groups into the Tswana hegemony. They continue to argue that the threat of being colonized by others than the British forced the Tswana chiefs to develop modernizing strategies and unify. This development was championed by the political and economic elite, who were both heavily involved in the cattle sector and had a strong hold over the state, both before and after independence, which in turn gave them the incentives to promote rational state institutions and private property rights.

Although highlighting the role played by political institutional structures is valid, the analysis offered by AJR and their followers is distorted by the neglect of economic institutions as well as by their opposition to recognizing the signiﬁcant impact that geography and factor endowments (land, labour and capital) have on long-term economic performance. Alternatively, we claim that the institutional school within economic history gives us more appropriate analytical tools as it caters for the necessary analysis of the multi-causal interaction between economic institutions, political interest groups, geography and factor endowments. In this paper, we are inspired by how North (1981: Chapter 6) takes into account the way changes in relative price between factors of production (e.g. land/labour ratio) fundamentally affect the institutional structure regulating the exploitation of the factor endowments involved (e.g. via property rights regimes). He goes on to argue that this process is multi-causal as institutions simultaneously affect relative price. North (1990: Chapter 10) further argued that changes in the ratio of factor prices, for instance land to labour, constitute one of the primary sources of long-term institutional change. Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) recognized the role of geography by arguing that soils and climate in the colonial settlements in the Americas together with labour supply were stronger determinants of the emerging institutional structure than institutional structures prevailing in the colonial powers themselves. For Africa, Herbst (2000) emphasized the importance of factor endowments by providing a historical investigation into how low population pressure has been the fundamental explanation of African leaders’ inability to control their territories, which in turn explains the failure to develop well-functioning state institutions. Also, Austin (2008) has put forward the argument that, subject to the historical context, changes in factor endowments have potentially played as big a role as institutions, or have even been the primary explanatory factor, driving change in Africa. Drawing on the institutional school within economic history, our point of departure before diving into an empirical case is that geographic pre-conditions and factor endowments affect the set-up of economic and political institutions and that these institutions in turn feed back into how geography and factor endowments are molded, exploited and managed. Although the applicability of the theoretical framework is universal, our original contribution is using it to analyse the last odd-150 years of Botswana’s economic history as well as to present an alternative periodization to capture the occurrence of structural change.

3 THE PRE-COLONIAL CATTLE ECONOMY AND COLONIAL ESTABLISHMENT: 1850–1930

During the ﬁrst half of the 19th century, the whole of Southern Africa experienced a period of disruption, migration and war. It is known as the Difaqane (or Mfecane) and commonly explained by the Zulu wars instigated by their king Shaka (1820s and 1830s), the northward expansion of Europeans including the Boer Trek (1830s and 1840s) and the continuous competition between growing African populations over access to land in the region. Numerous Tswana chiefdoms (e.g. the Kwena, Ngwaketse, Ngwato and Twana) were displaced, and as they settled in their present location in Botswana1 during the 1840s, much of their state structures were reinvented (Parsons, 1993; Ramsey et al., 1996). Our point of departure is 1850, after the Difaqane, and we start with two geographical aspects.

1A signiﬁcant section of Tswana tribes also reside in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

First, the Tswana were agro-pastoralists with an agricultural system based on a combination of crop farming and cattle rearing. Roughly two-thirds of what was to become the Bechuanaland Protectorate/Botswana is made up of the Kalahari Desert, an area too dry for cattle before the time of modern borehole drilling, and the desert primarily stayed uninhabited or populated by various San groups. In the North, there was water, the Okavango and Chobe Rivers, and also malaria and tsetse ﬂies. Consequently, to both access water and enjoy a healthy climate, the Tswana mainly settled and still live today, in the Eastern corridor (Map 1). According to the census in 1911, the total population was estimated to be nearly 125 000 (Blue Books 1911/12), and if we assume that, the Tswana inhabited, at most, half the surface that is present day Botswana that would give a population density of 0.1 individuals per square kilometres. We may discuss the quality of the data, but it is safe to say that in the pre-colonial era, population density was low.

Map 1. Post-Difaquane settlement by Tswana groups

More importantly though, throughout the pre-colonial days, there are no reports of concern for over-grazing, indicating that the size of the cattle population was well below the carrying capacity of the grazing range. The Tswana then fit well with Iliffe’s (1995) characterization of Africa as land abundant, and the farming system was extensive. Second, despite the low population density, the Tswana states where highly centralized, which is the opposite of Herbst’s (2000) argument that Africa’s weak state structure can be explained by its low population density. Contrary to many other African pastoralist populations, they were not nomadic. Instead, the population was divided between larger and smaller villages. Each village was surrounded by arable fields and further away lay the grazing range. Households held a residential plot in the village for their main hut, farm land in the arable fields and a cattle post (possibly with a water point) for their livestock on the grazing range. Depending on season and productive activities, household members moved between their three residences (Schapera, 1994; Mgadla, 1998; Silitshena and McLeod, 1998). Being sedentary and living in village concentrations were the necessary pre-conditions for the Tswana to develop centralized and hierarchical state structures. The settlement pattern is then the main explanation for the development of the relatively democratic and accountable political system, what the institutionalists have referred to as the good pre-colonial institutional structures (Acemoglu et al., 2003, 2010; Masire, 2006; Robinson and Parsons, 2006). Further, as herding is not a labour-intensive activity, the relative scarcity of labour did not create incentives for the development of authoritarian institutions for widespread systems of bonded labour which is otherwise associated with low population density. The important exception to this rule is the San populations representing roughly 5 per cent of the population and whose members were kept in slavery-like conditions. As is often pointed out by the institutionalist camp, after the Difaqane, the Tswana states were generally willing to incorporate various migrating groups on relatively equal terms into their morafe 2(Robinson and Parsons, 2006). Each morafe was headed by a kgosi3 who held a hereditary position characterized by outstanding privilege and authority. Legislative, administrative and judicial power was concentrated in the hands of the kgosi and by the morafe – he was viewed as the ultimate paternal caretaker. Combined with his political powers, the kgosi also controlled wealth, natural resources and production. He held land and cattle in trust for the morafe and decided how it was allocated and used, and he could command his subjects’ labour. To balance this significant power, the kgosi was expected to consult his councillors and elders as well as be generous towards his subjects. The level of authoritarian rule in each state depended to a substantial degree on the individual kgosi’s interpretation of his rights and duties (Wylie, 1990; Schapera, 1994; Mgadla, 1998). The primary social units were families and wards.4 Each family was under the authority of a pater familias, and each ward was under the leadership of a hereditary headman. Further, all adults belonged to age regiments, each headed by a member of the royal family and having specific duties to perform. Gender, age and seniority were of considerable importance, with authoritarian and hierarchal social structures valuing obedience and subjection (Schapera, 1994; Mgadla, 1998). The kgotlas were arenas, signifying both the physical place and the meetings held there, where members of a morafe could air their grievances. Each ward had one and

2Morafe: Setswana word for tribe in the singular, merafe in plural. 3Kgosi: Setswana word for chief or king in singular, dikgosi in plural. 4The ward constituted of numerous families, descendants of a common ancestor, or in other ways considered related, living together in a separate section of the village.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid Cattle, Diamonds and Institutions 161 the chief’s representatives presided over village kgotlas. In addition, the kgosi had a kgotla located in the tribal capital that was the centre for the tribal administration where he conducted trials and interacted with his subjects as well as visitors (Schapera, 1994). The kgotla is often presented as a phenomenon unique to the Tswana and identified as the key to the alleged pre-colonial heritage of good institutions that separates present day Botswana’s political structures from its neighbours’ (Acemoglu et al., 2003: Masire, 2006). Undoubtedly, the kgotla was an important tool for keeping the kgosi and his advisors accountable to the public as well as a way of guaranteeing some level of freedom of speech to his subjects, but it could only be attended by free men and far from all matters of the state were discussed (Mgadla, 1998). The colonial period brought a shift in the role of the kgotla as British rule strengthened the dikgosi in relation to their people, turning the kgotla more into an arena for announcements and less for debates (Mamdani, 1996: 46–47). As Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) theorized from their Latin American cases, factor endowment characteristics influenced the development of key institutions in the Tswana cattle economy, such as property rights governing agricultural resources and livestock. As land was abundant, access to water resources was the primary limiting factor for both crop farming and cattle rearing (Emongor, 2006). Both resources were, as an overriding principle, the communal property of the morafe held in trust by the kgosi. Male household heads were granted private user rights to specific land sites, such as to the residential plots, the arable land and the cattle posts. By combining private user rights and communally owned resources with the input of privately controlled family labour, the head of household could gain private ownership over structures such as houses or water points, as well as over agricultural production and animals (Schapera, 1994; Mgadla, 1998). These principles exhibited strong communal property rights principles, and they coincided with other property rights regimes governing natural resources in pre-colonial Africa (Perrings, 1992; Berry, 1993; Ensminger, 1997). Cattle were either held in common by the morafe and managed by the kgosi, or held as private property belonging to wealthy members of society. Whoever controlled cattle could use them to build patron–client relationships through mafisa, a system of lending out animals to cattle-less subjects and relatives on a long-term basis. The recipient gained access to milk and draft power, as well as ownership of potential future offspring, whereas the lender could claim both labour and political loyalty in return (Schapera, 1994). An individual’s ability to control or own cattle became the basis for both economic wealth and social status. Acemoglu et al. (2003) claimed that the private ownership of cattle in the pre-colonial era constituted the foundation of the post-colonial productive Botswana state. However, the extensive communal property rights regimes challenge such an emphasis on private property rights. The system of mafisa, for example, shows that the sharing of communal property, rather than exclusion through private property rights structures, served as an important way of building networks and institutions. Customary property rights in Africa are generally flexible and negotiable, allowing for both security of access and amassment. The inherent negotiability is understood by some as ultimately protecting and promoting the interests of the economically and socially weak in society (Berry, 2002; Odgaard, 2003), whereas others emphasize that negotiations take place between individuals of varying social, economic and political status and thus is an opportunity for the powerful and wealthy to amass resources (Peters, 1994, 2004). For Botswana, several researchers have agreed that contemporary institutions that facilitated the amassment of agricultural resources and cattle by economic and political elites can

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid 162 E. Hillbom be traced back to the pre-colonial redistributive system (Wylie, 1990; Good, 1994; Peters, 1994; Gulbrandsen, 1996; Hillbom, 2010). Moving on to the colonial era, limited colonial influence has often been identified as a key explanatory factor for the success of independent Botswana (e.g. Acemoglu et al., 2003; Robinson and Parsons, 2006). However, the colonial impact should not be underestimated, and to improve the analysis of the extent of colonial influence in Behcuanaland, we have divided the colonial era into two sub-periods, separated by their different degrees of colonial ambition. The first period, from 1885 to 1930, was the time of the establishment and the first decades of colonial rule; it is equated with limited colonial influence and a continued dominance of pre-colonial economic structures. The second period, from 1930 to independence in 1966, was characterized by increased colonial ambition for economic development and is discussed in the next section. Gold and diamonds were discovered in Kimberly and Witwatersrand in the 1860s and 1870s. As a result, Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company (BSAC), as well as the Boers and the British in what was to become the Union of South Africa, became interested in expanding their interests to the north. Tswana dikgosi reacted by seeking protection from the British who established the Bechuanaland Protectorate for the Tswana groups north of Molopo River in 1885 (Map 2). The administrative capital was located first in Vryburg and from 1895 to 1964 in Mafeking, South Africa, a fact that has often been cited as an indicator of limited colonial influence. Although the importance of the location of the capital can be questioned, we know that the British exercised limited control over the Tswana dikgosi during the first few years of colonialism (Parsons, 1993; Ramsey et al., 1996). A significant part of Bechuanaland Protectorate was held as Crown Lands or was under company rule. Already in 1867, limited gold reserves had been discovered in Tati by Germans, and since then, the area had been primarily controlled by the Tati Company and inhabited by both African and European farmers. The Kgalagadi, the large section to the west and south-west, was part of the Kalahari Desert and was only occupied by small numbers of the San population as well as Boer cattle farmers around Ghanzi. The Tuli Block in the east was controlled by the BSAC who in turn sold off land to European settlers (Ramsey et al., 1996: 218–231). The BSAC constructed the railway line from the Cape, via Mafeking to Livingstone in 1897, and controlled land along its length (Ramsey et al., 1996: 203–204). When added up, these were sizeable pieces of land, but only 3 per cent of farm land came under foreign control (Colcough and McCarthy, 1980). Combined with the fact that Europeans never made up more than 1 per cent of the Protectorate’s population (Lewis, 2006: 7), this has been a recurrent argument for limited colonial influence. During the early colonial period, two other interconnected processes of change influenced the economic structures of the Tswana states: labour migration to the mines in the future Union of South Africa and the introduction of colonial and native taxes in Bechuanaland Protectorate. The regional expansion of the mining sector from the 1860s onwards attracted labour from the whole of the Southern African region. There were few other opportunities for waged labour, and salaries could be generous, fluctuating between 20 and 64 shillings per month in the years 1888–1904, depending on labour demand (Parsons, 1993). At first, migration was modest and mostly motivated by the gun trade, but after the introduction of colonial taxes in 1899, it increased significantly. Migration became of such magnitude that labour became a scarce factor of production in the Protectorate to the point that it affected agricultural production negatively. Population was still at a low 265 000 in the mid-1930s (Blue Books 1936/37), and in many areas in

Map 2. Crown Lands and Native Reserves in the Bechuanaland Protectorate the south, even half of the productive population could be absent in the 1920 and 1930s (Parsons, 1993; Schapera, 1994; Ramsey et al., 1996: 206–208, 211). Mining was possibly the most important sector, but individuals to a large extent also took up employment as farm hands and domestic helps. This change in the land/labour ratio affected the relationship between tribal authorities and their subjects. Increasing difﬁculties in controlling labour, already the scarce production factor, threatened to undermine the authoritarian rule of the centralized Tswana states. Although this could have led to more authoritarian institutions for controlling labour, it seems that the dikgosi instead chose to persuade people to stay by proposing a more benevolent and ‘democratic’ rule in combination with traditional hierarchal structures. The taxation system went through some changes over the years: hut tax from 1899 was replaced by poll tax in 1907, followed by a graded tax in 1949. Levels of hut/poll tax at

first fluctuated between 10 and 25 shillings per annum, but became fixed at £1 in 1909. In 1919, a native tax of three shillings per annum was added, to be paid to and used by the tribal authorities. Relating tax levels to incomes from mining employment show that a mine worker could earn enough to pay the yearly hut tax several times over with 1 month’s wages. The colonial administration used the dikgosi for the collection of colonial taxes and gave them a 10 per cent commission as an incentive to perform conscientiously. In the 1930s, however, the government took over the colonial tax collection (Ramsey et al., 1996: 205; Makgala, 2006). Compared with other regions in the British Empire, tax levels were kept low throughout the colonial era, although they were a little higher than in the neighbouring southern African colonial territories. Tax revenue per capita was 99 and 131 pence per year in 1911 and 1925, respectively, and it took an unskilled urban worker 23 working days on average to earn enough to pay the tax (Frankema, 2010: Appendix 2). Although taxes had a significant effect on the individual level, they generated limited income and had little impact on colonial development strategies. For our first period (1850–1930), we can conclude that both geography and factor endowments influenced economic and political institutions. Climatic conditions and access to natural resources decided where the Tswana rebuilt their states after Difaqane, and the unique settlement pattern provided the geographical pre-conditions for the establishment of a centralized state with features such as the kgotla. Abundance of land, limited but sufficient access to water and scarce labour influenced the basic principles of property rights regimes. Meanwhile, building inclusive networks in the hierarchal social structures became the key to controlling factor endowments, especially cattle and labour. Instead of developing authoritarianism with the purpose of controlling scarce labour, the multi-causal interaction between natural pre-conditions and institutions resulted in relatively open and tolerant societies. Later on, colonial rule brought significant institutional change with the introduction of taxes, which affected factor endowments by encouraging labour migration, in turn weakening authoritarian rule as it changed the land/labour ratio in the Protectorate.

4 THE COLONIAL CATTLE ECONOMY AND EARLY POST-INDEPENDENCE STRATEGIES: 1930–1975

From the 1930s and onwards, the British colonial ambition generally across Africa was significantly enhanced. It was a time when colonial administrations started forming policies for investment and made efforts to bring socio-economic development (Cooper, 2002). In Bechuanaland, there was an increase in British grants and loans, and they were combined with a change in the distribution of investments as there was a new-found interest in developing natural resources into revenue earning exports to pay for further modernization efforts (Colcough and McCarthy, 1980; Parsons and Crowder, 1988; Steenkamp, 1991; Makgala, 2006). Although colonial development strategies were modest overall and had a limited time span, the late colonial period still brought about a significant change in institutional structures, systems of production and export opportunities. As shown in Figure 1, 1930 is the year that the Bechuanaland Protectorate started to receive proper colonial funding; it was first identified as extraordinary revenue and from financial year 1934–1935 termed the Colonial Development Fund. From 1933 and a few years onwards, there was also substantial parliamentary grant-in-aid, which represented as much as 70 per cent of total revenue in 1933–1934. Although this was an extreme year, grant-in-aid continued to be of significant importance until it was terminated with the

200000 180000 160000 140000 120000 Parliamentary grant-in-aid 100000 80000 Extraordinary 60000 revenue/Colonial 40000 Development Fund 20000 0 1945-46 1930-31 1931-32 1932-33 1933-34 1934-35 1935-56 1936-37 1937-38 1938-39 1943-44 1944-45

Source: Makgala (2006) Table 1 and 2.

Figure 1. Colonial investments in Bechuanaland Protectorate 1930–1946 (£) outbreak of World War II. Table 1 shows a breakdown of the colonial administration’s expenditures as well as the shift in colonial expenditure starting in the 1930s. Although expenditure on general administration and police was consistently declining, investments in health, education, veterinary and agricultural services, and public works were increasing. There was also the establishment and successive increase in colonial development expenditure financed by British grants and loans. The Bechuanaland Protectorate had a relatively high ratio of colonial administrators to the number of African subjects. In 1937, there were 13 193 Africans per administrator in Bechuanaland compared with the British Empire’s average of 37 374 Africans per administrator (Richens, 2009: Table 1). These figures can be interpreted in two ways: either the colonial influence in Bechuanaland was significant or there was a limit to how small any administration could be in order to function. With a total population of roughly 266 000 inhabitants (Mitchell, 1982: 38), this means some 20 or so administrators (not including the police force) assigned to govern an area the size of France. Changes in strategies to develop the export sector were closely related to the arrival of Charles Rey as the new Resident Commissioner in 1930 and his decision that ranching was the territory’s only potential comparative advantage. The primary obstacle for expanding the cattle sector was access to water in the drier areas of the grazing range and colonial efforts before World War II focused on borehole drilling schemes. Once constructed, boreholes were handed over to individuals or syndicates representing a limited number

Table 1. Colonial administrative expenditure in Bechuanaland Protectorate 1900–1966 (%) 1900–1925 1926–1935 1936–1945 1946–1955 1956–1966

General administration 54.4 51.8 41.4 35.3 41.0 Police 37.1 20.0 11.5 10.8 6.6 Medical 1.7 7.5 9.4 9.9 5.9 Education 1.2 3.4 4.1 4.8 6.3 Veterinary and agriculture 3.4 10.9 12.8 12.6 10.0 Public works 2.2 5.8 9.5 12.9 4.9 Development expenditures – 0.6 11.3 13.7 25.3 Total 100 100 100 100 100

Source: Colcough and McCarthy (1980): Table 1.1.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid 166 E. Hillbom of relatively influential and wealthy members of Tswana society. This elite was considered to have the best opportunities to run and maintain boreholes, and the result was an increasingly unequal division of water resources on the grazing range. After the war, drilling schemes continued and even increased in intensity in the 1950 and 1960s. They were complemented by other efforts such as veterinary fences and the establishment of an abattoir in Lobatse in 1954. Alongside the development of an elitist commercial beef industry, requests from the broad masses of subsistence farmers were given low priority (Hillbom, 2010). Initiatives to develop the cattle sector, however, did not only come from the colonial administration. The pioneering example of tribal initiative was that of BaKgatla and Kgosi Isang, who already in the late 1920s used native funds to initiate the first large scale water development scheme in Bechuanaland, later to be followed by other Tswana initiatives (Peters, 1994: 58; Schapera, 1980: 22–23). Similar to colonial strategies, tribal boreholes were vested primarily not only in syndicates but also in individuals belonging to the tribal elite, which allowed them to open up and control new parts of the grazing range (Hillbom, 2010). After getting off to a good start in the early years of the 1930s with cattle numbers reaching 1 400 000 head in 1934 (Roe, 1980: 2, Table 1), the development of the commercial cattle sector came to a halt in the mid-1930s as Bechuanaland was hit by both severe drought and outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. More than 60 per cent of the cattle population perished, and it took two decades before the population had been restocked and export resumed (Figure 2). This event involved a significant destruction of capital, as many Tswana had their savings in cattle as well as increased inequality as the smaller herds suffered the most. In the pre-colonial society, cattle had been the basis for the rural economy as a whole, but the colonial administration’s construction of a commercial cattle sector brought with it new opportunities for the elite to access export incomes, and it resulted in increased institutional inequality. In general, animals on the grazing range could wander no more than 5 km before they needed to drink; however, boreholes were allocated 8 km apart. As a result, ownership over water points indirectly gave control over the surrounding grazing range and the increasing amassment of de jure and de facto property rights governing water and land, which in turn allowed for a polarization within the cattle economy (Peters, 1994; Carlsson, 2003). In the 1940s, Schapera found that only 10 per

1600

1400

1200

1000 Cattle exports 800 (thousand)

600 Cattle population (thousand) 400

200

0 1932 1941 1956 1935 1950 1959 1962 1938 1944 1947 1953 1965

Source: Roe 1980. Figure 2. Cattle population and cattle exports in Bechuanaland Protectorate 1932–1965

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid Cattle, Diamonds and Institutions 167 cent of households held no livestock (Hesselberg, 1985: 182). In the first odd-decade after independence, the national herd expanded significantly to above 2.5 million head (CSO, 2013), but at the same time, many rural households lost their livestock partly because they lacked property rights to water points. An agricultural survey in 1983 reported that 30 per cent of all rural households owned no cattle, whereas 30 per cent of the national herd was owned by 4 per cent of households (Arntzen and Silitshena, 1989: 162). As Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) theorized, the pre-conditions for accessing factor endowments turned out to be a strong determinant in increasing levels of inequality. Contrary to Engerman and Sokoloff though, it was the Tswana elite and not settlers who were the winners, and although the process was furthered during colonial rule, it was initiated in the pre-colonial era and can primarily be traced to indigenous institutional structures. The 1930 and 1940s also saw an increased colonial interest in investigating and documenting the laws and customs of the Tswana. An anthropologist, Isaac Schapera, was contracted to record the Tswana Customary Law, and his findings became the basis for much of the current legislation (e.g. Schapera, 1980, 1994). Efforts to formalize existing customs were common across the continent at this time, and Africanists have debated the extent to which the indigenous elites managed to take advantage of this process and extend their control over natural resources (e.g. Chanock, 1991; Mamdani, 1996). Bechuanaland was no exception, and it is probable that the Tswana elite used this opportunity to further amass natural resources in the native area, and that this colonial effort thereby contributed to increased institutional inequality with the indigenous politico-economic elite as the winners. The late colonial period also saw the establishment of what Cooper (2002) has termed ‘a gate-keeping state’. Previously, the colonial powers had been occupied with conquering territories and establishing political control, but now, they instead searched for formalized incomes derived from local production, primarily to pay for local administration and also to add to the national economy. The easiest way to do this was first to extract available natural resources and/or produce cash crops for exports and second to cut administrative costs by focusing on the border regions of each colony instead of developing the territory as a whole. These conscious choices resulted in a minimalistic state structure that focused its resources on controlling the flow of goods in and out of the colony while having limited interactions with the inland regions. Although the period of active colonial administration in Bechuanaland was only some 35 years, a gate-keeping state centred around the cattle sector was established. This change in state structures significantly influenced the institutional development as well as principles for exploitation of natural resources and factor endowments (Hillbom, 2012). This claim serves as an alternative to, for example, Herbst (2000) who argued that compared with other factors such as factor endowments, colonial influence has had limited impact on African development. Although Acemoglu et al. (2001, 2002) generally assumed colonial rule in Africa to have been extractive, they understood Bechuanaland to be an exception to this rule and instead argued colonial influence there to have been limited. Empirical evidence, however, points to a story that is different from both extraction and limited influence. As Figure 2, Table 1 and the paragraphs on the development of the cattle sector clearly show there were investments in water resources, veterinary fences, an abattoir, extension services and so on, primarily in order to develop the export sector which had decisive effects on socio-economic structures. The principles of indirect rule encouraged each colony to maximize incomes and minimize efforts in order to be able to bear its own costs. Accordingly, colonial administrations were dependent on their own revenues to invest in social development

(Frankema, 2011). As long as incomes generated from the hut and poll taxes were among the most modest within the British Empire (Frankema, 2010) and the export sector was dominated by beef, a low value product, there was little room for greater investment in either social or economic development. To illustrate the Protectorate’s backwardness, at independence in 1966 Botswana had 12 km of paved roads, 22 Batswana had graduated from university and 100 from secondary school (Acemoglu et al., 2003). Importantly, this poor state of affairs was not the result of the extractive policies of the colonial administration but of modest state revenue from existing natural resources and factor endowments. During the last decades of colonial rule, development strategies were to a significant degree formulated in conjunction with the Tswana elites, including future post- independence leaders such as Seretse Khama and Quett Masire. In the 1950s, these leaders were primarily looking to achieve social and economic development in the Protectorate, and only later did they start developing strategies for independence. Because the politicians in powerful positions were the same before and after independence, the development policies that had been generated within a colonial context stayed on and influenced the development efforts during the first decades of independence (Masire, 2006). At this time, beef represented 85 per cent of total export earnings (Colcough and McCarthy, 1980: 32; Harvey and Lewis, 1990: 78–82) and the government continued to invest in the construction of water points, access to veterinary services, building veterinary fences and setting up the Botswana Meat Commission (a monopoly buyer of cattle for exports) (Lawry, 1983: 14; Acemoglu et al., 2003: 101). As the early post-independence leaders to a significant degree were also prominent cattle holders profiting from the existing export sector, they had no profound interest in instigating structural change away from the colonial cattle economy. By now, population had increased to around 550 000 people giving an estimated population density in the eastern areas of just below 0.5 person per square kilometres, and the national cattle herd was 1.1 million head (Population census 1964; Roe, 1980: 2, Table 1). All in all, land was still abundant and labour-scarce, and as long as relative prices and natural resources stayed the same, so did institutions. Non- radical development efforts and socio-economic continuity between the colonial and early post-independence eras has often been quoted as a principle explanation of the subsequent success story (e.g. Samatar, 1999; Acemoglu et al., 2003, 2010; Leith, 2005; Beaulier and Subrick, 2006). Alternatively, it entailed an absence of initiatives to instigate structural change with a potential for inclusive development (Hillbom, 2008). One example of institutional continuity was the way that land was allocated and managed. After independence, the state took over the responsibility for allocating agricultural resources from the tribal authorities. In 1968, both the Water Act and the Tribal Land Act were enacted. The first vested the responsibility for granting water rights in a government organization, the Water Apportionment Board. For the enforcement of the second piece of legislation, 12 Land Boards were created in 1970 with the responsibility of allocating land. Both pieces of legislation followed the principles that had been prominent during customary law; namely, agricultural resources were communally owned and private user rights were allotted to individuals and smaller groups constructing, for example, houses and water points. The difference was that the responsibility for handing out the allocations was now vested in the state instead of the dikgosi (Hillbom, 2010). In 1975, the Tribal Grazing Land Policy brought about a more radical divide of land into three different categories: communal (staying under the authority of the Land Boards working under the principles of customary tenure), commercial (giving groups and individuals exclusive rights in the form of leasehold tenure) and reserve (for future use

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid Cattle, Diamonds and Institutions 169 and wildlife). Most of the more densely populated eastern parts of Botswana were designated as communal land, whereas the more sparsely populated larger western regions became either commercial or reserve land. The idea was that the larger cattle holders would move out of the communal areas and establish farms on private land (Masalila, 1983: 152–156; Parson, 1984; Gulbrandsen, 1996: 10–18). As it turned out, large cattle holders were often able to profit from resources on both their private farms and the communal grazing range, thereby further increasing the unequal access to agricultural resources (Hillbom, 2010). Although, depending on the empirical basis, the processes may have looked a little different in each country, there has been a general trend in post-independent sub-Saharan Africa for the elite to support and maintain the customary institutional system governing agricultural resources, with the goal of enriching themselves. The unfortunate consequence of this has been increasing inequality and polarization within the rural sector as well as between the urban and the rural sectors (Platteau, 1996; Carney and Farrington, 1998; Ribot, 2000). In the case of Botswana, this can be exemplified with the dikgosi and their overseers becoming designated members in the Land Boards thereby providing continuity with pre-colonial institutions (Hillbom, 2010). In summing up the era of the colonial cattle economy from 1930 to 1975, the following should be emphasized. First, the creation of a commercial cattle sector was clearly a story about the interaction between changes in relative price, factor endowments and institutional development. New sources of revenue and increased access to capital allowed for new development strategies by the colonial administration. These efforts in turn increased the value of land, water and cattle. Second, the era left a significant institutional heritage in the form of institutionalized inequality and the creation of a gate-keeping state. Third, the colonial administration was not extractive per se, but limited profits from existing natural resources and factor endowments prevented investment in social development. Finally, as long as the established politico-economic elite gained from the existing allocation of factor endowments and economic structure, there was no real drive for comprehensive institutional change.

5 THE DIAMOND-LED ECONOMY: 1975–PRESENT

Although the economy continued to be dependent on natural resources, signiﬁcant economic growth was to come following a shift in the export sector from beef to minerals in general and to diamonds in particular. Prior to independence, the contribution of the mining sector to national GDP was trivial, but this changed when diamond deposits were discovered in 1967. After a few years, diamond mining started on a larger scale, and in 1973, the mining sector’s contribution to GDP was 11 per cent. After roughly a decade’s build-up, the mining sector’s contribution had grown to 23 per cent of GDP, and it was to increase further (Gaolathe, 1997: 408; Table 2). Figure 3 shows how agriculture, namely, the cattle sector, measured as a value added percentage of GDP, plunged drastically from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s and since then has stayed at very low levels. Meanwhile, industry, namely, diamond mining, experienced just as dramatic a surge during the same period and has remained the primary productive sector in the economy. Following from Figure 3, 1975 is identiﬁed as the break-point between the colonial cattle economy and the post-independence diamond-led economy. Jerven (2010) has clearly shown that the explanation for the restructuring of the economy between 1965 and 1995 is to be found in the expansion of the diamond sector.

50 Agriculture, value 40 added (% of GDP) Industry, value 30 added (% of GDP)

20 Services etc., value added (% of GDP) 10

0 1960 1964 1996 2000 2004 2008 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992

Source: World Bank 2012. Figure 3. Agriculture and industry, value added (% of GDP) 1960–2011

The Botswana government established a 50/50 partnership with De Beers, the world’s largest diamond company once founded by Cecil Rhodes, thereby ensuring that diamond revenues to a significant extent would stay in the country. The government’s sound management of diamond resources, avoiding the Dutch Disease and the natural resource curse as well as enforcing prudent financial policies, is a key explanation of Botswana’s extraordinary long-term growth and has been extensively discussed elsewhere (Hill, 1991; Acemoglu et al., 2003; Leith, 2005; Beaulier and Subrick, 2006; Iimi, 2006). Clearly, the state structures in independent Botswana have played an important role in this outcome. The geographical aspects are, however, seldom mentioned. Extraction in Botswana requires deep mining which is suitable for a state-led operation, whereas the so called ‘blood diamonds’ in West Africa can be washed from rivers, making exclusion difficult. Further, diamonds demand modest labour input, are easily stored and cheap to transport independent of if the country is land-locked. Interestingly enough, although diamonds have been an exceptional success, the performance of the rest of the mining sector has been on a par with other African countries (Jerven, 2010). A downside of being dependent on one high value natural resource has, as theorized by Hirschman (1958), been that the diamond sector from the start had few linkages with the rest of the economy. The Botswana of today is an example of a country stuck in a natural resource trap, a case of economic growth with social development and political maturity but not of economic development (Hillbom, 2008). Too often, economic growth and economic development are equated with one another, but if we turn to the founders’ development economics (Lewis, 1954; Kuznets, 1973), it is evident that these two concepts are not one and the same.5 In their writings, the core of economic development is the modernization of the economy signified by the following: high rates of per capita and population growth, significant technological advances. substantially rising productivity, participation in the globalized economy and structural transformation of the economy, society and ideology. Growth then is an indispensable part of development, but as it can promote processes of structural change, it can also occur in societies that stay predominantly pre-modern. In the case of the post-independence diamond-led Botswana economy, favourable natural

5In their own writings, Lewis and Kutznets use the term growth when discussing economic development.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid Cattle, Diamonds and Institutions 171 resources have allowed for economic growth, but the institutional structure has been unable to initiate the structural transformation necessary for promoting economic development (Hillbom, 2008). Unlike the boom in the diamond sector, productivity in the cattle sector has been low and stagnant. The off-take rates6 have stayed the same since independence and are currently around 17 per cent. This can be compared with 32 per cent for high performing Australia, 27 per cent for Argentina, 19 per cent for Mongolia and 22 per cent for neighbouring South Africa (Hillbom, 2010: 418; Table 2). In the midst of this inefficiency, the cattle population has continued to increase because cattle still play an important role in the livelihoods of people in the rural areas where just under 40 per cent of the population are residing (World Bank, 2012) as well as in the economic, social and, to some extent, political status of the elite. The national herd peaked at 3 million head in 2002. Although it has since declined again (CSO, 2013), current pressure on agricultural resources (water and grazing land) is alarming. Further, there is a continuing polarization of agricultural resources, and the percentage of cattle-less rural dwellers has increased for over half a century. In the early 1990s, roughly half of rural households had no cattle, whereas 5 per cent owned 50 per cent of the national herd (Gulbrandsen, 1996: 3). As mentioned previously, there is a general agreement among scholars that this process of polarization is rooted in the pre-colonial and colonial redistributive systems, which has allowed the political and economic elite to amass agricultural resources and cattle (Wylie, 1990; Good, 1994; Peters, 1994; Gulbrandsen, 1996; Hillbom, 2010). It is not only the cattle sector that reveals indications of inequality. Although the country as a whole has experienced an increase in wealth compared with the pre-colonial and colonial eras, the new fortune has been unequally distributed among the Batswana. In the mid-1970s, Botswana’s Gini coefficient of income distribution was 0.73 (Good, 1992: 79) and in 1993 was 0.63; although it has at present declined to a bit in excess of 0.5, contemporary Botswana is still one of the most unequal countries in the world (World Bank, 2012). A dual society has been created where the rural areas are generally characterized by low technology levels of farming, high unemployment, dependence on drought relief and so on. With water, land and cattle being amassed by the elite and with an institutional structure safeguarding the unequal distribution of incomes from natural resources, the ‘growth without development’ situation is further enforced. Notwithstanding this, diamond incomes have paid for social development, and the government has spent about 40 per cent of its GDP on investments, primarily in infrastructure and human capital, a figure that is one of the highest in Africa and comparable to Norway (Acemoglu et al., 2003: 85). This strategy for ensuring the population’s access to basic needs has, for example, resulted in there now being 8500 km of paved roads, 76 airports, 2.5 million mobile phone users and 120 000 internet users (CIA, 2012). Further, 92 per cent of the population has access to improved water sources, total adult literacy is 83 per cent and enrolment in secondary schools is some 85 per cent (World Bank, 2012). These are all giant steps forward compared with the situation at independence. During the era of the diamond-led economy from 1975 until the present, Botswana’s growth miracle is equally explained by the access to a very specific natural resource and by the good management of the said resource. Next to the diamond-led economy, the cattle sector has continued to be of economic importance, primarily to rural dwellers and the

6Percentage of animals slaughtered out of the national stock.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 26, 155–176 (2014) DOI: 10.1002/jid 172 E. Hillbom cattle holding elite. Increasing number of people and cattle have shifted the land and water/ labour ratios making agricultural resources more scarce and thereby more valuable as well as amassed in the hands of a smaller group of large cattle holders. As diamond revenues have been the basis for social development, a polarization of incomes and wealth within both the cattle sector and the society at large has been the basis for increasing institutional inequality.

6 CONCLUSION

Numerous scholars have added to the theoretical discussion on the multi-causal interaction between geography and factor endowments on the one side and economic and political institutions on the other. Finding one, all-comprising, universal theoretical model that is at the same time explicit on how and in what sequence these interactions take place is not, however, within reach. What the macro theory can do is to guide us by pinpointing the variables that must be included in our analysis and to support us in embracing the complexity of multi-causal relationships. Meanwhile, the identification of how processes of long-term continuity and change in economic growth and development unfold is determined by the investigation of each empirical case. What we can do is to use the theoretical framework as a basis for discussing certain ‘types’ of sequences of interaction. We know that all societies must adapt to the pre-conditions offered by the geographical setting; the extent and characteristics of natural resources, climate and location. These geographic conditions are given, and although societies can adjust to them in various ways as well as discover more about the given geography (e.g. find diamond deposits), they cannot fundamentally change them. Consequently, there is a one-sidedness in the relationship between geography and the institutional structure. We also know that the amount and relative price of factor endowments (land, labour and capital) fundamentally affect the way systems of production are organized. Contrary to geography, there are many ways that factor endowments can be molded by society to suit its purposes, for example, by influencing the amount (family planning, moving into marginal lands and lending money), quality (education and farming practices) or organization (factory systems and banking). The multi-causal interaction between factor endowments and institutions is then more complex than that between geography and institutions. Meanwhile, favourable pre-conditions are far from the whole story in regard to success or failure because how resources are allocated and managed is imperative for success or failure and that is in turn guided by institutional structures. Apart from being influenced by the pre-conditions given by geography and factor endowments, these are also influenced by both economic and non-economic ambitions and values, for example, the search for increased economic efficiency, interest groups, ideology, religion and culture. When the road ahead seems determined to unfold in a certain direction based on existing pre-conditions, strong economic and/or political institutions can turn that development around. Attempting to categorize the sequence of interaction in the case of Botswana, we can infer that geography was the main determinant of initial settlement and institutions. Although the pre-colonial and early colonial era is full of multi-causal interaction between factor endowments and institutions, including growing institutional inequality, neither factor can be identified as the main driver over the other. Later, the colonial economy became dominated by changes in factor endowments, changes that favoured the, primarily

Tswana, elites and few changes that occurred in the institutional structure. The lack of profound institutional change continued during the post-independence diamond-led economy. With diamonds, geography became the driving force of the growth trajectory, but the support from the institutional structure was imperative for growth to be sustainable. At present, economic institutions are caught in a natural resource trap where they will remain until there is some signiﬁcant change either in pre-conditions, for example, an end to diamonds, or in political institutions, for example, new groups with contradicting economic interests challenging the existing elite.

REFERENCES

Acemoglu D, Robinson J. 2012 Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. Random House: New York. Acemoglu D, Johnson S, Robinson J. 2001. The colonial origins of comparative development: an empirical investigation. The American Economic Review 91(5): 1369–1401. Acemoglu D, Johnson S, Robinson J. 2002. Reversal of fortune: geography and institutions in the making of modern world income distribution. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4): 1231–1294. Acemoglu D, Johnson S, Robinson J. 2003. An African success story: Botswana. In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth, Rodrik D (ed.). Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford; 80–119. Acemoglu D, Johnson S, Robinson J. 2010. Why is Africa poor? Economic History of Developing Regions 25(1): 21–50. Albouy D. 2012. The colonial origins of comparative development: an empirical investigation: Comment. American Economic Review 102(6): 3059–3076. Arntzen J, Silitshena R. 1989. Access to land and farm income in Botswana. In Inequality and Development: Case Studies from the Third World, Swindell K, Baba JM, Mortimore MJ (eds). Macmillan Publishers: London and Basingstoke. Austin G. 2008. The ‘reversal of fortune’ thesis and the compression of history: perspectives from African and contemporary economic history. Journal of International Development 20(8): 996–1027. Beaulier S, Subrick R. 2006. The political foundations of development: the case of Botswana. Constitutional Political Economy 17(2): 103–115. Berry S. 1993. No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub- Saharan Africa. The University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, WI. Berry S. 2002. Debating the land question in Africa. Comparative Studies in Society and History 44(4): 638–668. Bloom DE, Sachs JD. 1998. Geography, demography, and economic growth in Africa. Brooking Papers on Economic Activity 1998(2): 207–295. Carlsson E. 2003. To Have and to Hold: Continuity and Change in Property Rights Institutions Governing Water Resources among the Meru of Tanzania and the BaKgtala in Botswana; 1925–2000. Lund Studies in Economic History, 28. Almqvist & Wiksell International: Stockholm. Carney D, Farrington J. 1998. Natural Resource Management and Institutional Change. Routledge/ ODI: London. Chanock M. 1991. A peculiar sharpness: an essay on property in the history of customary law in colonial Africa. The Journal of African History 32(1): 65–88.

CIA. 2012. The World Fact Book. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ geos/bc.html [Accessed 31 August 2012]. Colcough C, McCarthy S. 1980. The Political Economy of Botswana: A Study of Growth and Distribution. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Cooper F. 2002. Africa Since 1940: The Past and the Present. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. CSO. 2013. Central Statistics Office, Gaborone, Botswana. http://www.cso.gov.bw/index.php [Accessed 29 May 2013] Emongor VE. 2006. Use of secondary effluent in food production in Botswana. Journal of Applied Science 6(2): 318–324. Engerman S, Sokoloff K. 2002. Factor endowments, inequality, and paths of development among New World economies. Economia 3(1): 41–108. Ensminger J. 1997. Changing property rights: reconciling formal and informal rights to land in Africa. In The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics, Drobak J, Nye J (eds). Academic Press: San Diego. Frankema E. 2010. Raising revenue in the British Empire, 1870–1940: how ‘extractive’ were colonial taxes? Journal of Global History 5: 447–477. Frankema E. 2011. Colonial taxation and government spending in British Africa, 1880–1940: maximizing revenue or minimizing effort? Explorations in Economic History 48(1): 136–149. Gallup JL, Sachs JD, Mellinger AD. 1999. Geography and economic development. International Regional Science Review 22(2): 179–232. Gaolathe B. 1997. Development of Botswana’s mineral sector. In Aspects of the Botswana Economy, Salkin JS, Mpabanga D, Cowan D, Selwe J, Wright M (eds). Lentswe La Lesedi: Gaborone; 401–431. Good K. 1992. Interpreting the exceptionality of Botswana. The Journal of Modern African Studies 30(1): 69–95. Good K. 1994. Corruption and mismanagement in Botswana: a best case example? The Journal of Modern African Studies 32(3): 499–521. Gulbrandsen O. 1996. Poverty in the Midst of Plenty. Bergen Studies in Social Anthropology, 45. Norse Publications: Bergen. Harvey C, Lewis SR, Jr. 1990. Policy Choice and Development Performance in Botswana. Macmillan in association with the OECD Development Centre: London. Herbst J. 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton University Press: Princeton. Hesselberg J. 1985. The Third World in Transition: The Case of the Peasantry in Botswana. Scandinavian Institute of African Studies: Uppsala. Hill C. 1991. Managing commodity booms in Botswana. World Development 19(9): 1185–1196. Hillbom E. 2008. Diamonds or development? A structural assessment of Botswana’s forty years of success. The Journal of Modern African Studies 46(2): 191–214. Hillbom E. 2010. Agricultural development and the distribution of water resources in Kgatleng District, Botswana. Development Southern Africa 27(3): 412–427. Hillbom E. 2012. Botswana: a development-oriented gate-keeping state. African Affairs 111(442): 67–89. Hirschman A. 1958. The Strategy of Economic Development. Yale University Press: New Haven. Hopkins A. 2009. The new economic history of Africa. The Journal of African History 50(2): 155–177. Iimi A. 2006. Did Botswana Escape from the Resource Curse? IMF Working Paper 06/138. International Monetary Fund: Washington DC. Iliffe J. 1995. Africans: The History of a Continent. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Jerven M. 2010. Accounting for the African growth miracle: the official evidence – Botswana 1965–1995. Journal of Southern African Studies 36(1): 73–94.

Kuznets S. 1973. Modern economic growth: findings and reflections. The American Economic Review 63(3): 247–258. Landes D. 1998. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor.W.W. Norton & Company: New York. Lawry S. 1983. Land tenure, land policy, and small livestock in Botswana. Research Paper No. 78, Land Tenure Center. University of Wisconsin: Madison, WI. Leite C, Weidmann J. 1999. Does Mother Nature Corrupt? Natural resources, corruption, and economic growth. IMF Working Paper 99/85, International Monetary Fund: Washington. Leith C. 2005. Why Botswana Prospered. McGill-Queen’s University Press: Montreal & Kingston. Lewis A. 1954. Economic development with unlimited supply of labour. The Manchester School 2(2): 139–191. Lewis S. 2006. Explaining Botswana’s success. In Developing Cultures, Harrison L, Berger P (eds). Case Studies: New York, NY. Makgala CJ. 2006. Elite Conflict in Botswana: A History. African Institute of South Africa: Pretoria. Mamdani M. 1996. Citizen or Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton University Press: Princeton. Masalila A. 1983. Botswana’s national policy on tribal grazing land: towards a strategy for rural development. In Botswana’s Economy Since Independence, Oomen MA, Inganji FK, Ngcongno LD (eds). Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company: New Delhi. Masire QKJ. 2006. Very Brave or Very Foolish? Memoires of an African Democrat. Macmillan Botswana Publishing Co (Pty): Gaborone. Mgadla PT. 1998. The Kgosi in traditional Tswana setting. In Botswana: Politics and Society, Edge WA, Lekorwe MH (eds). J. L. van Schaik Publishers: Pretoria. Mitchell BR. 1982. International Historical Statistics: Africa and Asia. Macmillan Press: London. North D. 1981. Structure and Change in Economic History. W. W. Norton & Company: New York. North D. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Odgaard R. 2003. Scrambling for land in Tanzania: processes of formalisation and legitimisation of land rights. In Securing land Rights in Africa, Benjaminsen T, Lund C (eds). Frank Cass: London. Parson J. 1984. Botswana: Liberal Democracy and Labor Reserve in Southern Africa. Westview Press: Boulder, CO. Parsons N. 1993. A New History of Southern Africa (2nd edn). Macmillan Education: London. Parsons N, Crowder M (eds). 1988. Monarch of all I Survey: Bechuanaland Diaries 1929–37. The Botswana Society: Gaborone. Perrings C. 1992. Sustainable Development of the Human and Natural Resources of Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Botswana. Report prepared for the Technology and Employment Branch. International Labour Office: Riverside, CA. Peters P. 1994. Dividing the Commons: Politics, Policy, and Culture in Botswana. University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville and London. Peters P. 2004. Inequality and social conflict over land in Africa. Journal of Agrarian Change 4(3): 269–314. Platteau J-P. 1996. The Evolutionary Theory of Land Rights as applied to Sub-Saharan Africa: a critical assessment. Development and Change 27(1): 29–86. Ploeg F van der. 2011. Natural resources: curse or blessing? Journal of Economic Literature 49(2): 366–420. Ramsey J, Morton B, Mgadla T. 1996. Building a Nation: A History of Botswana from 1800 to 1910. Longman Botswana: Gabarone.

Ribot J. 2000. Decentralization, participation, and representation: administrative apartheid in Sahelian forestry. In Development Encounters: Sites of Participation and Knowledge, Peters P (ed.). Harvard University for HID: Cambridge, MA. Richens P. 2009. The economic legacies of the ‘Thin White Line’: indirect rule and the comparative development of sub-Saharan Africa. Economic History Working Paper No. 131/09. London School of Economics: London. Robinson JA, Parsons N. 2006. State formation and governance in Botswana. Journal of African Economies 15(AERC Supplement 1): 100–140. Roe E. 1980. Development of Livestock, Agriculture and Water Supplies in Eastern Botswana Before Independence: A Short History and Policy Analysis. Ministry of Agriculture: Gaborone, Botswana. Sachs J. 2012. Government, geography and growth: the true drivers of economic development. Foreign Affairs, September/October. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138016/jeffrey-d- sachs/government-geography-and-growth Sachs J, Warner A. 1995. Natural resource abundance and economic growth. Development Discussion Paper No. 517a, October. Harvard Institute for International Development: Harvard University. Samatar AI. 1999. An African Miracle: State and Class Leadership and Colonial Legacy in Botswana Development. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH. Schapera I. 1980. A History of the BaKgatla-bagakgafêla. Phuthadikobo Museum: Mochudi. Schapera I. 1994. A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom (reissued). International African Institute: London/LIT Verlag: Münster-Hamburg. Silitshena RMK, McLeod G. 1998. Botswana: A Physical, Social and Economic Geography (2nd edn). Longman Botswana: Gaborone. Steenkamp P. 1991. Cinderella of the Empire? Development policy in Bechuanaland in the 1930s. Journal of Southern African Studies 17(2): 292–308. World Bank. 2012. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/ BOTSWANAEXTN/0,,menuPK:322817~pagePK:141159~piPK:141110~theSitePK:322804,00. html [Accessed 30 August 2012]. Wylie D. 1990. A Little God: The Twilight of Patriarchy in a Southern African Chiefdom. Wesleayn University Press: Hanover and London.