Liberalization by inertia: The politics of land reform under Zambia's movement for multiparty democracy, 1991–2011

Abstract

AbstractZambian land is governed under hybrid system that includes statutory and customary tenure, and the administration of the sector has long been regarded as inadequate by a host of international and domestic stakeholders, both neoliberals and pro‐poor advocates alike. Consequently, major land reform has been on the agenda for 2 decades, particularly during the rule of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) from 1991–2011, yet scant progress was made. The status quo appeared untenable, inasmuch as it left all sides unsatisfied: It was inconsistent with the country's generally neoliberal, investor‐friendly focus; it denied rural smallholders' access to collateral through title, and it simultaneously left rural voters potentially at the mercy of unscrupulous chiefs and savvy domestic and international land investors and speculators. The government largely failed to advance land reform despite years of rhetoric to the contrary. This paper identifies 3 principal reasons for this inertia: first, the system prevented opportunities for rent extraction by unscrupulous chiefs and their counterparts in the local and national land bodies and their international beneficiaries. Second, demand for land reform among the rural poor was diffuse and weakly articulated, meaning advocacy scanty. And third, although perhaps not as incendiary as countries such as Zimbabwe or Kenya, land reform was and remains politically sensitive. As Zambian politics grew increasingly competitive, the MMD could not afford to alienate any constituency. Siding with “investors” would needlessly alienate chiefs and the main users of customary lands, the rural poor, whereas the reverse would jeopardize investment imperatives, particularly in the land‐hungry mining, agriculture, and tourism sectors. Thus, Zambia under the MMD can be seen as caught between a model of “traditional,” customary tenure, and a “modern” property rights regime: Various proposals for reforms could not mutually satisfy address poverty alleviation needs and market demand for land. The best solution politically, therefore, was inertia. Yet the result of policy inertia over time is de facto land “reform” by other means, namely, the gradual alienation of the poor from lands to which they previously enjoyed access, in favor of the investor class.