Does Land Quality Increase the Power of Traditional Leaders in Contemporary Africa?

Abstract

The power of traditional leaders varies across and within sub-Saharan African countries. Existing literature explains this as the result of state-building decisions about where to employ indirect rule in the colonial and postcolonial periods. We argue that the contemporary power of traditional leaders is also influenced by land quality. In the precolonial period, land quality played little role in encouraging political centralization due to its abundance relative to the population. In the current period, traditional chiefs are more influential in places with higher agricultural potential because of increased competition for land. Drawing on survey, ecological, and anthropological data, we show that the power of traditional leaders is endogenous to local land quality.