CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Land Reform and the Use of Violence: Creating a Set of Conditions Using the Case of Zimbabwe

Parker-Reed, SSWAC

The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of conditions under which land reform becomes violent, looking specifically at the fast-track land reform policy implemented in Zimbabwe from 1998-2003. The roots and use of violence in the context of land reform is a topic that has not been widely researched in previous land reform literature, however it is important as the issue of land inequality has been, and is, an ongoing issue in many sub-Saharan African countries, including Zimbabwe. This paper will argue that land reform will become violent when certain economic, political, and social conditions are present. Socially, when there is both a large number of ethnic outsiders occupying jobs in the farming sector, and racial outsiders owning a large amount of land; politically, when there is a statist land tenure regime, outputs deemed illegitimate by the landless class, and the use of land reform to suppress political opposition; and economically when there is high land pressure in communal areas and a desire to exit the pre-existing land regime, land reform will be more prone to violence. These hypotheses will be analyzed within the context of the pre-existing literature, empirical evidence, and quantitative data in order to understand when violence is used. The results of these hypotheses will then be applied to the case of land reform in Kenya for external validity. This research will create a set of conditions under which violence is used during lad reform specifically in the case of Zimbabwe but with an eye towards a more expansive set of conditions.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/170