LAND, STATE-BUILDING, AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN AFRICA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Lauren Elizabeth Honig January 2017 © 2017 Lauren Elizabeth Honig ii LAND, STATE-BUILDING, AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN AFRICA Lauren Elizabeth Honig, Ph.D. Cornell University 2017 This dissertation examines the effect of customary institutions on the state’s control over property rights, in an era of booming demand for African agricultural land. Through the cases of Zambia and Senegal, the dissertation argues that this modern state-building process is constrained and facilitated differently according to variation in pre-colonial organization. Two key processes for building the state’s authority over land are examined. First, I demonstrate that historically hierarchical customary authorities are more likely to resist large-scale land acquisitions by the state and multinational corporations. Second, I show that small-scale farmers strategically title their land in response to their status within the customary regime. Analysis of original geo-coded survey data, case studies, archival research, and a database of land titles compiled over 18 months of fieldwork demonstrate how the organization of customary institutions determines the development of state property rights. iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Lauren Honig received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Studies from Northwestern University in 2007. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso from 2007- 2009. In 2010, she began her graduate education in the Department of Government at Cornell. She will be a postdoctoral research fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame during the academic year 2016-2017. Starting in the fall of 2017, she will be Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I express my deepest appreciation to the hundreds of citizens in Zambia and Senegal who participated in this research. These farmers, customary authorities, and civil servants took the time to share their experiences with land access and political authority with me. I have preserved their anonymity in these pages, but recognize that their contributions made this dissertation possible. All of my gratitude for the data, the thieb, and the tea. Second, I consider myself very fortunate for the training, support, and intellectual stimulation I received at Cornell. Nic van de Walle has been a superior advisor. Since day one of graduate school, he has treated my ideas and experience as important. The hours and sometimes days I have spent contemplating his incisive questions have transformed this project for the better. Ron Herring was an invaluable resource on agricultural politics who kept me focused on the details of what structures the decisions of farmers. Tom Pepinsky taught me how to combine theoretical precision and area knowledge. I am supremely grateful for his mentorship in all aspects of my professional development. Thanks are also due to Kevin Morrison, Adam Seth Levine, David Patel, and Peter Enns in the Department of Government, who contributed in different ways to making this project more interesting and rigorous. Tina Slater’s patience and efficiency made everything easier during my 6 years at Cornell. Elsewhere on the Cornell campus, I had the great fortune of engaging with interdisciplinary communities of scholars focused on land and African development. The Land Team at the Institute for Social Sciences, particularly Wendy Wolford and Chuck Geisler, pushed me to think about this project in new ways. The seminars at the Institute for African Development fed my intellectual curiosity. I am grateful to its eminent director, Muna Ndulo, for guidance during the early stages of this project. Thanks are also due to Keith Jenkins at the Mann Library who patiently taught me new GIS skills, even when the internet connections in Lusaka were frustratingly slow. In Zambia, I was lucky to have the support of two excellent research institutions. I will fight the temptation to name all of the researchers and staff at the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI) who made my time in Zambia so productive and enjoyable. Special thanks are due to Chance Kabaghe and Thom Jayne for making my tenure at IAPRI possible. I am also grateful to have been part of the research community created by the Southern African Institute for Policy Research (SAIPAR). My deepest appreciation to Marja Hinfelaar and Jessica Achberger. I also acknowledge the important contributions of the National Archives of Zambia to this research. In Zambia, this project benefited from research assistance from Rave Suzah, Webster Chewe, Obino Paul Mulenga and Heather Musariri. In Senegal, the West Africa Research Center (WARC) provided institutional support and an exciting community of scholars. A number of Senegalese land tenure experts weighed in on my early ideas for this project; among these I acknowledge formative feedback from Iba Mar Faye and Ibrahima Almamy Wade. The National Archives of Senegal facilitated a solid historical basis for this research. I am grateful for excellent research assistance from Fodé Sarr, who oversaw our team of survey enumerators that includes Amadou Tidiane N’Diaye, Cherif Kandji, Fatimata Soumare, Ibrahima Niasse, Mamadou Coulibaly, Mamadou Diagne, Mamadou Ndiaye, Mame Diarra Diop, Ndèye Astou Fall, and Ousmane Mbaye. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Joanna Sherif for research assistance in Senegal. This research was possible due to generous financial support from the Social Sciences v Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, and a Fulbright-IIE research grant for Zambia. Two summers of pre-dissertation research in Senegal and Zambia were supported by the Institute for Social Sciences, the Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Department of Government at Cornell University. Special thanks are due to my friends and family who provided social support throughout this project. I was lucky to be part of an intellectually-exciting and generous cohort at Cornell. I am grateful to the friends in Zambia and Senegal who kept me smiling during fieldwork and occasionally housed and fed. The rest of my social support network may not have cared much about this project but cared a whole lot about me. They have kept me rooted throughout this project and multiple moves. To my family— Mom, Dad, Karen, and Kim— this dissertation was possible due to your tireless support and unwavering confidence in me. This research is about the subtle and persistent influence of historical institutions on contemporary outcomes. I dedicate this dissertation to my own historical lineage, my two grandmothers. It is an honor to be part of a lineage of such strong and dynamic women. To Grandmère Lil and Grandma Helen. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Biographical Sketch ..................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii Tables ............................................................................................................................................. x Figures ........................................................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1 Land, State-Building, and Political Authority ....................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1.1 The Salience of Land Politics ...................................................................................... 3 1.1.2 Defining Customary Land ........................................................................................... 7 1.1.3 Defining Customary Authority .................................................................................... 9 1.2 Theoretical Context ......................................................................................................... 10 1.2.1 Land Titling as State-Building .................................................................................. 10 1.2.2 Induced Institutional Change and Evolutionary Theories of Land Titling ............... 14 1.2.3 Customary Authority and the Modern Manifestations of Pre-Colonial Hierarchy ... 15 1.3 Theory .............................................................................................................................. 16 1.3.1 The Stakes of Land Titling ........................................................................................ 17 1.3.2 Two Solutions for Customary Authorities ................................................................ 22 1.3.3 Smallholder Land Titling .......................................................................................... 26 1.4 Testing the Theories .......................................................................................................