Reform and counter-reform in Kenya's land governance

Bibliographic Data

ID11905367
AuthorsJacqueline M Klopp (0000-0002-3284-1715, Earth Island Institute, corresponding author), Odenda Lumumba (Kenya Land Alliance)
Year2017
Volume44
Issue154
Publication date2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReview of African Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-6244 • E-ISSN: 1740-1720
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03056244.2017.1367919
OpenAlexW2764146115
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited28

Fashioned within conquest, Kenya’s current system of land governance was designed to facilitate land expropriation for the few and powerful. Post-colonial elites never fundamentally reformed this system of concentrated legal and administrative power over land and continue to benefit from it. This article explores both recent efforts at land governance reform and the numerous ways that counter-reform resistance is occurring and currently gaining the upper hand. The authors argue that powerful networks of beneficiaries create a strong system of control and exclusion around land, producing a path dependency against reform. The challenge for reformers is to overcome these powerful forces arrayed against change with creative mobilisation strategies, leveraging not only the 2010 Constitution and the courts but also public outrage and stronger civil society organisation. Overall, an important reform struggle in Kenya is just beginning, the outcome uncertain and the stakes for the country’s future very high

Agriculture · Corporate governance · Development economics · Economics · Geography · Land reform · Political science · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Land Rights and Reforms · Public Administration · Finance

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub