Autocracy and Redistribution
The Politics of Land Reform

This book provides a novel theory of land reform and tests it using extensive original data dating back to 1900.

Michael Albertus (Author)

9781107106550, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 September 2015

320 pages, 43 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.65 kg

'A great paradox of modern political life is that concentrated landed wealth is a great frozen ice cap blocking the emergence of modern democracy and development. Yet, democracies themselves seem less capable of implementing land reform than autocracies. To date we have only the barest understanding of the complex politics of land reform. In this careful and ambitious study, Michael Albertus untangles these puzzles, constructing the most comprehensive cross-national and historical dataset on land reform alongside carefully crafted case studies of Peru and Venezuela. The result is an argument that provides the most compelling political theory of land reform to date that has broad implications for the study of democracy, redistribution and autocracy.' Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard University, Massachusetts

When and why do countries redistribute land to the landless? What political purposes does land reform serve, and what place does it have in today's world? A long-standing literature dating back to Aristotle and echoed in important recent works holds that redistribution should be both higher and more targeted at the poor under democracy. Yet comprehensive historical data to test this claim has been lacking. This book shows that land redistribution - the most consequential form of redistribution in the developing world - occurs more often under dictatorship than democracy. It offers a novel theory of land reform and develops a typology of land reform policies. Albertus leverages original data spanning the world and dating back to 1900 to extensively test the theory using statistical analysis and case studies of key countries such as Egypt, Peru, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. These findings call for rethinking much of the common wisdom about redistribution and regimes.

1. Introduction
2. Actors, interests, and the origins of elite splits
3. A theory of land reform
4. Measuring land reform
5. A cross-national analysis of land reform in Latin America
6. Elite splits and land redistribution under autocracy: Peru's 'revolution from above'
7. Land reform transformed to redistribution: Venezuela's Punto Fijo democracy and Chávez's Bolivarian revolution
8. Latin America in comparative perspective
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]