Land Law Reform and Complex State-Building Process in Rwanda

This study sheds light on recent land law (land tenure) reform in Rwanda by examining its close and complex relations with state-building. By prioritising land law reform and receiving strong support from external funding agencies, the post-civil warRwanda became the first African country to complete land registration throughout its territory. Land law reform should be considered a part of the radical interventions in rural areas frequently implemented by the Rwandan Patriotic Front-led government and, therefore, has been closely connected to its aspiration to reinforce the existent political order. The government has utilised reform and external financial support for this purpose. However, despite the success of the one-time land registration, Rwanda has encountered serious difficulties in institutionalising sustainable registering systems since transactions of land have been recorded only in exceptional cases. Additionally, it suggests that the government does not have a strong incentive to collect accurate information about properties in rural areas. The widening gap between recorded information and the real situation may affect land administration, which is of tremendous importance to Rwanda and, thus, possibly undermine state control over society.

Shifting visions of property under competing political regimes: changing uses of Côte d'Ivoire's 1998 Land Law

Land law reform through registration and titling is often viewed as a technocratic, good-governance step toward building market economies and depoliticising land transactions. In actual practice, however, land registration and titling programmes can be highly partisan, bitterly contentious, and carried forward by political logics that diverge strongly from the market-enhancing vision. This paper uses evidence from Côte d'Ivoire to support and develop this claim. In Côte d'Ivoire after 1990, multiple, opposing political logics drove land law reform as it was pursued by successive governments representing rival coalitions of the national electorate. Between the mid-1990s and 2016, different logics – alternatively privileging user rights, the ethnic land rights of autochthones, and finally a state-building logic – prevailed in succession as national government crafted and then sought to implement the new 1998 land law. The case underscores the extent to which deeply political questions are implicated in land registration and titling policies.