The political economy of Land Reform: A new perspective applied to Latin America (original) (raw)
Related papers
Land Reform in Latin America: Past, Present, and Future
Latin American Research Review, 2019
When the Latin American Research Review (LARR) was created in 1965 the debate on land reform was gathering force, and to its credit, the first issue carried a research review article by Richard Schaedel on land reform studies. Seventeen years passed before another review essay on land reform was published in LARR. As William Thiesenhusen wrote then, “land reform as an issue is not forgotten.” This time around, it has taken twice as many years again for this review essay to appear, prompting the question: Is land reform still alive? The five books reviewed in 1982 by Thiesenhusen deal with countries in which land reforms were ongoing. By contrast, the books now under review largely deal with the history of land reform. Is land reform history?
The rise and fall of land reform in Brazil
2016
36 Abstract – Land reform in Brazil experienced in the early 1960s an initial historical moment of intense political debate without concrete steps to materialize it. But a second and recent moment, from the mid-1990s onwards produced a relevant record in terms of poor families settled and a huge area expropriated under that policy. However, a spectacular process of agricultural expansion and intense technological incorporation was simultaneously observed thus positing an intriguing question how property rights and a required ‘institutional framework’ directly affected by land expropriation and land invasions by the landless groups did not block that process of agricultural growth? This concrete case exposes the analytical flaws of mainstream literature, which requires institutional preconditions to explain development and/or implementation of national policies. This apparent antinomy constitutes the analytical brackground of this article.
2012
In the mid-1980s and 1990s, the sugarcane industry in the Northeast region in Brazil entered into a deep crisis. With the liberalization of the state there was a cut in state subsidies and a number of sugarcane mills collapsed, leaving many workers unemployed. The rural workers, supported by different social movements, such as Landless workers Movement and Rural Workers Trade Unions, started to fight for access to land. Many of them managed to get a piece of land in the Land Reform Settlements. Our understanding is that land reform in Brazil is a multi-faced, multi-stage process and highly sight-specific. This article analyzes the effects of land reform on land tenure and production in the sugarcane region of northeastern Brazil during the 1990s. It is grounded on quantitative data, both secondary and primary sources, and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews. In this sense, we show that although important sections of the land in the region have been converted into family...
An analysis of the regional impacts of land reform in Brazil
Estudos Sociedade e Agricultura, 2005
This article aims to portray short, medium and long-term change processes brought about by the establishment of rural settlements in Brazil. The goal was to apprehend the transformations in the lives of the settlers, in the settlements and in the regions where these are located. The article is based on a study that carried out in some of the Brazilian regions that had the greatest concentration of settlement projects and number of families of settlers per unit of territory (termed zones). The basic premise was that this concentration stemmed from struggles, and that the proximity of several projects has served to multiply their effects.
The World Bank’s ‘Market Assisted Land Reform’ in Colombia and Brazil (1994-2002)
Revista Brasileira de História , 2015
The article analyzes the implementation of the World Bank's 'market-assisted land reform' in Colombia and Brazil. It shows that MALR was designed and implemented as a model opposed to redistributive agrarian reform, based on the disappropriation of private lands by the state. It also analyzes the results of MALR in the two countries, arguing that its principal function was not economic, but rather political, to adjust agrarian policy to the neoliberal agenda and serve as an instrument to undermine the popular struggle for the democratization of the agrarian structure in highly unequal societies. Keywords: World Bank; agrarian reform; land markets
Land Reforms and Economic Development
Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2010
We examine the nexus between land transfers and human capital formation. A sequence of land redistributions enables the beneficiaries to educate their children and thus to escape from poverty. A successful land reform allows the transition of a society from an agriculture-based state of poverty to a human capital-based developed economy. We find that a temporary state of inequality among the poor is unavoidable. Finally, we discuss the political economy of land reform, whether access to land markets should be allowed for beneficiaries of land reforms, and property rights issues.
Land Reform and Technical Efficiency: panel data evidence from Northeastern Brazil
Recent census data show that up to 13% of rural establishments in Brazil are derived from land reform programs. Long-stated theory has provided inputs for market-assisted land reform based on the establishment of land tenure, market intervention, decentralization of governance, empowerment of communities, and efficient resource use. Our objective is to explore efficiency effects of Brazilian market-assisted land reform (i.e., with land and credit market subsidies, and decentralized governance). A stochastic frontier analysis with inefficiency effects is performed for 181 households in a panel data model for the years 2000 and 2006. The observed gain in performance between 2000 and 2006 is irrefutable, even though small gains are observed in estimated technical efficiency. The technical efficiency index of Cédula da Terra Program beneficiaries demonstrates an increase from 0.35 to 0.44 during the period. Positive efficiency effects are provided by environmental conditions captured by state dummies and municipalities superior soil quality, and moreover by animal labor, and the presence of livestock. Negative effects are related to self-consumption of production, the existence of outer income, and purchase seeds. In addition, a closer analysis of the efficiency index reveals an efficiency frontier positively affected by the presence of technical assistance, the existence of livestock and animal labor, and increased labor days in the property allied to a lack of outer income. These results indicate a certain level of idiosyncrasy and that increasing the efficiency of smallholders is certainly an open issue, especially within market-assisted policies.
European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2007
The article analyses the political struggles that occurred during the implementation of projects and programmes in Brazil based on marketassisted land reform (MALR), which was conceived by the World Bank as an alternative to the redistributive agrarian reform and carried out by the state through expropriation of land. The article places the MALR within the process of recycling the neoliberal agenda – when the so-called ‘second generation’ of structural reforms was given a boost – and within the extent of the World Bank’s financial, political and/or intellectual actions related to property issues, ownership and use of the rural land. It then shows why, how, what for and under which political support the MALR was introduced in Brazil during the Cardoso government. The political struggle involving the implementation of the MALR is also analysed, detailing the process of articulation and disarticulation of the peasants’ organizations that opposed to the World Bank’s proposal. After evaluating the struggles occurring during the Cardoso government, the article explains how Lula’s first mandate continued to implement MALR, and presents recent positions of the World Bank on the subject.
From State-led to Grassroots-led Land Reform in Latin America
Access to Land, Rural Poverty and Public Action, 2001
Over the last eighty years, virtually all Latin American governments have used the power of the state to alter access to land for specific categories of households and to redefine land rights for those with access. Extensive land reforms were part of the outcome of revolutions in Mexico (1917), Bolivia (1952), and Nicaragua (1979). Authoritarian governments imposed land reforms in Peru (1969-75) and Ecuador (1964). Democratically elected governments also pursued land reforms in Chile (1964-73), Colombia (1961-), Guatemala (1952-54), Honduras (1973-), El Salvador (1980-), and the Dominican Republic (1961-). Even in Brazil, where colonization of frontier lands was substituted for true land reform until 1985, new initiatives have been taken to promote redistribution
Land reform in NE Brazil: a stochastic frontier production efficiency evaluation
Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural, 2011
The aim of this paper is to address the sources of technical and allocative inefficiency from a cross section sample of 308 beneficiaries of a market assisted land reform program, called "Cédula da Terra"; from five states in Northeastern region of Brazil. In spite of some differences on governance of the "Cédula da Terra"; in comparison with traditional expropriation land reform program, studies carried by Buainain et al. (2002) have shown small differences between then, regarding their social and economic characteristics. We believe that our results could be useful to identify the main problems of Brazilian land reform settlements. We estimated a potential production frontier following the methodology of Battese and Coelli (1995), Coelli et al. (1998) and applied econometric techniques to explain inefficiency. The results indicate the existence of technical and allocative inefficiency, which is identified mostly in situations where the presence of production fo...