Transformation Of Property Rights Research Articles

Public space without the public: State and individuals in courtyard space in Dashilar, Beijing

This article discusses the meaning of public space and the problem of public reconstruction by means of sociological intervention through an experimental study of community formation and courtyard space rearrangement in the old neighborhood of Dashilar in Beijing. In the West, scholars regard public space as part of public life with political or social significance. In the courtyards of Dashilar, however, residents understand public space as important as a shared property of neighboring families that is separate from public life, as they are often acquainted with but alienated from one another. To grasp this different understanding of public space, this article first looks into the historical transformation of property rights in Dashilar. The courtyards in Dashilar have clearly been defined as state-owned urban space since the 1980s but have remained neglected in administration. Therefore, residents gradually encroached upon these courtyards that were owned by the state and divided them for private use. As this act of encroaching was rooted in the relationship between the state and the individual, the courtyards were not merely changed into privatized properties with specific functions, but became places for interactions between various actors. To reveal the complexity of these courtyards as public spaces, we discuss the expansion of private space by individuals in their daily life and the “public disturbances” initiated by temporary coalitions in space construction. This complexity of courtyards as public spaces can be well illustrated by two experiments of space rearrangement conducted in Dashilar. Both experiments introduced strong social interventions into space rearrangement: one attempted to rebuild social life in a courtyard, and the other worked on the public and private boundaries in a courtyard. The former experiment ended in failure while the latter was a success. The results of these two experiments tell us that public reconstruction is not just about rebuilding social interactions between people, but also about adjusting the state–individual relationship and establishing the rules of living together in public space.

Transformation of Local People’s Property Rights Induced by New Town Development (Case Studies in Peri-Urban Areas in Indonesia)

New town development as a form of large-scale development is not a new phenomenon, particularly in developing countries. This development mainly takes place in peri-urban areas due to the high pressure caused by the growing population and the lack of facilities and infrastructure in city centres. As an effect, local communities who originally occupied the land often lose their rights over the property their livelihood might have relied on. Property rights can be grouped differently, classified according to different bundles: appropriation, ownership, and formality of rights. This paper investigates to what extent new town development in Indonesia has affected the property rights of local communities, in terms of the transformation of rights and security level. Moreover, it examines to what extent this transformation has been affected by urbanisation pressure. Ample attention is paid to the transformation of various bundles of rights concerning different usage of property, both residential and cultivated land. A total of 252 questionnaires were distributed to three different locations of new towns in Indonesia. A before-after analysis was employed to identify the transformation of the property rights and their security level, followed by multiple linear regression analysis to observe the influence of the urbanisation pressure to the security level. The research reveals that the transformation of property rights of local residents mainly concerns the appropriation rights. The analysis also indicates that there is a tendency that the security level decreases. Statistically, this appears to be affected by urbanisation pressure variables: type of land, land use, and occupation. With this study, we offer on the one hand a conceptual framework for assessing property rights, while on the other hand, we provide empirical evidence regarding the effects of new town development on property rights transformation and its security level.

Corporate Rights Of The Spouses: The Essence Of The Legal Regime

The article is devoted to the question of legal regulation of corporate rights of spouses. The issues of the legal regime of marital property as well as the essence of the legal regime of spouses’ corporate rights have been discussed.
 It has been justified that upon investing marital property into the authorized share capital of a corporation which one of the spouses has ownership rights in, the rights of rem become the law of obligation (vinculum iuris). The law of obligation, incurred between spouses upon investing part of the shared property into company’s authorized share capital to participate in the authorized share capital, is based on the claim rights.
 It is noted that since the moment the company is registered with the State Registrar of Companies, such a company becomes a participant of civil law relations. The predetermined contribution (consisting of marital property) invested into the authorized share capital of a corporation becomes the property of the mentioned legal entity and is not subject to shared property of the spouses. Therefore, marital property as joint owned property becomes sole and separate property of the corporation.
 It has been proved that taking into account the indivisibility and the personalized nature of corporate rights, corporate rights cannot be subject to shared property of the spouses. This statement is supported by the fact that having the other spouse as a shareholder will lead to the increase in the number of shareholders.
 It has been explained that the legal regime of spouses’ corporate rights is subject to special legal regime, namely transformation of property rights. For that of the spouses who is a company shareholder, the right to property, which is being contributed to the authorized share capital of the corporation, becomes corporate right. For the other spouse, the mentioned above rights become claim rights.

Property Rights Through Social Movements: The Case of Plantations in Kerala, India

Globally, increased investor interest in land is confronting various types of political mobilisations from communities at the grassroots level. This article examines the case study of a land occupation movement called Chengara struggle in the largest corporate plantation in southern India. The movement is led by the historically dispossessed scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities. The objective of the study is to understand the type of institutional transformation of property rights that the movement is calibrating. Institutional theory is used to determine the nature and direction of transformation using the framework of economic and political transaction costs. The article concludes that the central demand of the struggle for individual title deed has higher private gains for right-holders, but has overall negative gains for agricultural productivity. The article concludes that productivity-oriented demands to restructure land-use rights within plantations might converge in the land struggles of the future.

The Paradigm Shifts of Community Governance in China

Abstract This paper provides a description of the community governance paradigm shifts in China over the past 4 decades. By taking a historical review of Chinese tradition in community governance, a brief history of the transformation of property rights in the former Soviet Bloc, plus a theoretical analysis from the perspective of social physics, this study clarifies the inherent logic for the community governance evolution across China. The influence that ancient dynasties, up to 1949, exerted upon the modern community governance has been large, which has formed certain social governance inertia. However, there have emerged many new forms of power among which the homeowners are the strongest group to demand more autonomy. By using a social physics framework, this article sheds light on the ongoing tension between the traditional inertia and the emerging trend of autonomy in real estate. Furthermore, the logic could be employed for predicting the future community governance style in China.

New rules are not rules: Privatization of pastoral commons and local attempts at curtailment in southwest Madagascar

This paper examines the case of indigenous privatization of the important fodder tree samata (Euphorbia stenoclada) and concurrent legal curtailment of this privatization among the Tanalana people of southwest Madagascar from a long-term perspective. Applying a framework for institutional change to empirical data derived from interviews conducted in 20 villages in the Mahafaly Plateau region, the study explores the process and mechanisms involved in creating and asserting private property rights to this common pool resource on the one hand, and the process of curtailment on the other. Implementation of the curtailing institutions is hampered by (1) the low bargaining power of village communities versus privatizers, which stems from the users’ preference for avoiding open conflicts and laissez faire ideology, (2) the low social acceptance and internalization of new curtailment rules, which are perceived as contradictory to customary resource privatization rights and the ideology of personal freedom restricted only by ancestral rules-in-use, and (3) ineffective self-governance and enforcement mechanisms based on pro-active monitoring of local users. Stressing the interplay between ideology and bargaining power in the context-specific constellation of actors, this paper contributes to the understanding of the transformation of property rights and institutional change in self-organized, traditional societies.

Re‐thinking frontiers in Southeast Asia

Re‐thinking frontiers in Southeast Asia

Property and Authority in a Migrant Society: Balinese Irrigators in Sulawesi, Indonesia

ABSTRACTMultiple definitions of resources as property lead to competition over legitimate authority between state and non‐state organizational and institutional arrangements. This article focuses on the overlapping and competing domains of the water users’ association, WUA, and the ‘traditional’ Balinese irrigators’ institution, subak. While the former is backed up by the power of state regulation and administration, the latter derives legitimacy from Balinese irrigators. The author presents a case study of the establishment and transformation of property rights in an irrigation‐based Balinese migrant society in Indonesia; he concludes that, in the ongoing process of competition for authority and mutual adjustment, both institutions undergo important transformations.

The footprints of history: path dependence in the transformation of property rights in Kenya's Maasailand

The recent wave of subdivision of Maasai group ranches is not an isolated event, but rather part of a broader, historical process of transformation in land relations and policy development in Maasailand. Maasai have over time supported land privatization, first by formalizing collective rights in group ranches and more recently by individualizing collective land holdings. Privatization is perceived to be an effective strategy for safeguarding Maasai land claims against appropriation by non-Maasai, the government and elite Maasai. Construction of the Uganda railway in early twentieth century and the subsequent influx of European settlers who were granted individual title to secure their investments are events that began the institutional path of privatization. The persistence and dominance of individualized arrangements regardless of other more optimal property rights options is a result of the dominance of elite interests (supported by state institutions) even as state imposed institutions replaced Maasai customary systems of land allocation.

A new capitalist order: privatization & ideology in Russia & Eastern Europe

After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, more than a dozen countries undertook aggressive privatization programs. Proponents of economic reform championed such large-scale efforts as the fastest, most reliable way to make the transition from a state-run to a capitalist economy. The idea was widely embraced, and in the span of a few years, policymakers across the region repeatedly chose an approach that distributed vast amounts of state property to the private sector essentially for free - despite the absence of any historical precedent for such a radical concept. But privatization was not a panacea. It has, instead, become increasingly synonymous with collusion, corruption, and material deprivation. Why was privatization so popular in the first place, and what went wrong? In answering this question, Hillary Appel breaks with mainstream empirical studies of postcommunist privatization. By analyzing the design and development of programs in Russia, the Czech Republic, and across eastern Europe, Appel demonstrates how the transformation of property rights in these countries was first and foremost an ideologically driven process. Looking beyond simple economic calculations or pressure from the international community, she argues that privatization was part and parcel of the foundation of the postcommunist state. A New Capitalist Order reveals that privatization was designed and implemented by pro-market reformers not only to distribute gains and losses to powerful supporters, but also to advance a decidedly Western, liberal vision of the new postcommunist state. Moreover, specific ideologies - such as anticommunism, liberalism, or nationalism, to name but a few - profoundly influenced the legitimacy, the power, and even the material preferences of key economic actors and groups within the privatization process.

The Allocation of the Commons: Parking on Public Roads

The allocation of parking spaces on public roads presents an ideal test of the formation and transformation of property rights in response to changes in technology and cost. This study looks at bottom‐up regimes for parking, which are based on possession of particular spaces for limited periods of time, and top‐down systems of allocation, such as metered parking and parking permits, which are based on such factors as place of residence or disability. In general, the bottom‐up systems do better in an economic sense because they tend to reduce the dead time associated with these spaces. The system of incremental modification of parking places, however, is undermined by a political process that tends on balance to be more responsive to the interests of particular groups than to the overall carrying capacity of the commons.

The Coevolution of Institutions, Organizations, and Ideology: The Longlake Experience of Property Rights Transformation

This article examines the transformation of property rights over fishery resources in Longlake, China, where a gradual evolutionary process from a common property regime to a state property regime occurred between the late 1970s and the late 1980s. It explores the active role played by economic actors as well as the underlying economic, political, and sociocultural forces in transforming both formal and informal property rules. Stressing the different ways formal and informal property rules change, this article contributes to our understanding of property rights transformation and institutional change in general.

Property Rights and Economic Reform in China

1. Property rights in the Chinese economy: contours of the process of change Andrew G. Walder and Jean C. Oi Part I. Enterprise Ownership in Village Communities: 2. Collective enterprise and property rights in a Sichuan village: the rise and decline of managerial corporatism Gregory A. Ruf 3. Local institutions and the transformation of property rights in Southern Fujian Chih-Jou Jay Chen 4. The role of local government in creating property rights: a comparison of two townships in Northwest Yunnan Xiaolin Guo 5. The evolution of property rights in village enterprises: the case of Wuxi Kung James Kai-Sing Kung Part II. Rural Shareholding Reforms and Their Impact: 6. Shareholding cooperatives: a property rights analysis Eduard B. Vermeer 7. Local elites as officials and owners: shareholding and property rights in Daqiuzhuang Nan Lin and Chih-Jou Jay Chen 8. The regional evolution of ownership forms: shareholding cooperatives and rural industry in Shanghai and Wenzhou Susan H. Whiting Part III. The Transformation of Public Property in the Urban Economy: 9. Backyard profit centers: the private assets of public agencies Yi-Min Lin and Zhanxin Zhang 10. Bargained property rights: the case of China's high-technology sector Corinna-Barbara Francis 11. Producing property rights: strategies, networks, and efficiency in urban China's nonstate firms David L. Wank Notes Index.

Book Reviews

Lewis, Carenza, Mitchell‐Fox, Patrick and Dyer, Christopher Village, hamlet and field: Changing medieval settlements in central EnglandDobson, R.B. Church and society in the medieval north of EnglandGervers, Michael (ed.) The cartulary of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in England, 2: Prima CameraGoldberg, P.J.P. (trans. and ed.) Women in England, c. 1275–1525: documentary sourcesGriffiths, Paul, Fox, Adam and Hindle, Steve (eds.) The experience of authority in early modern EnglandGowing, Laura Domestic dangers: women, words and sex in early modern LondonHunt, Margaret R. The middling sort: commerce, gender, and the family in England, 1680–1780Whatley, Christopher A. The industrial revolution in ScotlandKnowles, Anne Kelly Calvinists incorporated: Welsh immigrants on Ohio’s industrial frontierGurney, Peter Co‐operative culture and the politics of consumption in England 1870–1930Riley, James C. Sick, not dead: the health of British workingmen during the mortality declineBeik, William Urban protest in seventeenth‐century France: the culture of retributionGrouzet, François Britain, France and international commerce: from Louis XIV to VictoriaGreen, Nancy L. Ready‐to‐wear and ready‐to‐work: a century of industry and immigrants in Paris and New YorkBiggs, Lindy The rational factory: architecture, technology, and work in America’s age of mass productionRoy, William G. Socializing capital: the rise of the large industrial corporation in AmericaClarence‐Smith, William Gervase (ed.) Cocoa pioneer fronts since 1800: the role of smallholders, planters and merchantsFirmin‐Sellers, Kathryn The Transformation of property rights in the Gold CoastLee, James and Campbell, Cameron Fate and fortune in rural China: social organisation and population behaviour in Liaoning, 1774–1873Hanley, Susan B. Everyday things in premodern Japan: the hidden legacy of material culture?ŒEichengreen, Barry Globalizing capital: a history of the international monetary system

The transformation of property rights in the Gold Coast: an empirical analysis applying rational choice theory

The transformation of property rights in the Gold Coast: an empirical analysis applying rational choice theory

Transformation indebtedness of cooperative farms

Due to the previous dominant position of cooperatives ( collective farms ) in the Czech agriculture transformation of property rights in the post-November period was a key part of agricultural reform. Further outlook of the present (transformed) cooperatives which accounts for roughly a half of the total agricultural outputs represents a cardinal problem of the future agrarian structure in the Czech Republic. This outlook is, however, rather problematic. It is not only a result of some weak features of the cooperative as a specific business form (problems ensuing from the complicated ownership and interest structure in cooperatives). What makes the cooperative farms in the Czech Republic so vulnerable is their transformation indebtedness - extensive term liabilities due to entitled persons who took part in the transformation of property rights in cooperatives several years ago.

The Role of Ownership and Property Rights in China's Economic Transition

The ever-greater roles played by markets and pecuniary incentives, and the increasing decision-making authority of localities, enterprises and individuals, have been central elements of China's economic reforms. Compared with these radical departures from the past, change in the area of property rights has been ambiguous. Depending on one's perspective, China might be seen as on its way to establishing a socialist market economy, in which public and collective ownership forms are predominant, or well along the path to a radical transformation of property rights, including a de facto private agriculture, massive private foreign investment, stock markets and the growth of private enterprise. What role property rights have played in the successes and problems of China's reforming economy is similarly debatable. The view that property rights have remained largely “social” leaves open interpretive possibilities ranging from the conclusion that China offers evidence of the viability of a market socialist option, to arguments that the transformation of property rights remains a major hurdle on the road to an economy that can support sustained growth. The quite different view that sectors experiencing substantial privatization have been the main contributors to the achievements of the reform economy, and that those maintaining public ownership have held back economic growth, is also taken by some.The nature of the property rights that have characterized China's economy during the years of economic reform, and the influence of property rights and property rights reform on the performance of the economy during that era are the subjects of this article.

Property Rights and Democratic Socialism

This paper attempts to throw new light on what one might terra the ‘operational component’ of social democratic thinking, functional socialism, by focusing on the creation. organization, and transformation of property rights. I argue that while democratic socialism does provide a political and philosophical schema that justifies distribution rules not sanctioned in ‘the market’,1 the novelty of the solution (and thus the necessary difference from existing advanced industrial societies, including the United States) is exaggerated. In addition. the tension between the attenuation of private property rights and their arrogation by the state on the one hand and citizen control over state activities on the other is not sufficiently perceived. My main purpose is to delineate and explore these problems. I also suggest ways in which the argument might be strengthened.