AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Pilfering the Public: The Problem of Land Grabbing in Contemporary Kenya |
| Author: | Klopp, Jacqueline M. |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Periodical: | Africa Today |
| Volume: | 47 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Period: | Winter |
| Pages: | 7-26 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | corruption land reform Politics and Government Law, Human Rights and Violence Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment |
| External link: | http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/africa_today/v047/47.1klopp.pdf |
| Abstract: | The intensification in the 1990s of irregular allocations of public land to well-connected individuals and land-buying companies in Kenya's 'land grabbing mania' is a revealing case of deepening corruption. The author argues that the combined effects of a decline in traditional sources of patronage such as aid, greater international scrutiny of some forms of corruption, and enhanced political competition pose real threats to the Moi government. In such a context, public land, highly accessible and less encumbered by international conditionalities than private property, is an attractive patronage asset. In addition, administration officials fearful that a change in government will end their privileged access to this public resource have accelerated their accumulation of land and rents on land allocations. However, privatization of prominent public sites, including schools, bus stations, roads, markets, forests, cemeteries and public toilets presents a particularly dramatic display of corruption for most Kenyans, many of whom are fighting back. These dynamics are leading to ever more violent struggles around 'land grabbing' with important long-term consequences for both the security of property rights and the prospect for democracy in Kenya. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. |
