Capitalist development in hostile conjunctures: War,dispossession, and class formation in Turkey

This article analyses how periods of geopolitical conflict and violence have affected the development of capitalism and class formation in Turkey. We argue that all major episodes of conflict, violence and war—from forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of the non‐Muslims in the late 19th and the early 20th century, to Kurdish secessionist warfare in the 1990s and the Syrian Civil War—have become major historical turning points in the development of historical capitalism in Turkey. These “hostile conjunctures” transformed capitalism through their direct and indirect effects on dispossession, class formation, and capital accumulation. Although each of these conflicts produced a violent dispossession process, none of them resembled the rural dispossession process in England. To make sense of Turkey's experience, we turn our attention to what we call the “Castilian/Spanish road,” and what Lenin called the “Junker/Prussian road” and the “farmers/American road.” Our analysis shows that these differential paths of dispossession, class formation, and capital accumulation have produced highly variegated rather than uniform outcomes. We conclude that we are living in a new “hostile conjuncture,” which is pregnant to a major structural crisis and is generating the preconditions of another historical transformation in the way capitalism operates.     

Large-scale agricultural investments under poor land governance in Zambia

This paper looks at how large-scale land acquisitions made by foreign investors in Zambia are implemented. It scrutinizes both the steps that an investor has to go through in order to attain land within the Zambian land governance system as well as the actors shaping the acquisition process.As the most important formal change introduced to the Zambian land governance system, the Lands Act 1995 paved the way for foreign investments in land. The new actor “investor” on the other hand has emerged as a result of rising prices for food and non-food commodities. The study finds that the enforcement of formal rules in the process of acquiring land is currently weak and largely determined by a number of actors: while investors, local authorities and government officials have strong leverage, local land users are excluded from the process. If the process of transformations of customary land into state land continues, land administration will be inevitably shifted toward statutory jurisdiction. As a result, local chiefs will lose their discretionary power thereby further marginalizing local land users. As it stands, welfare implications are chiefly down to the individual actors. However, it is only the government that can issue a guarantee that local land users will also benefit from land acquisition.     

The value components of contract farming in contemporary capitalism

Contract farming (CF) has generally been understood as, essentially, a market institution—by both (approving) “mainstream” and (critical) “radical” perspectives. Analyses of relations of production have, meanwhile, tended towards a problematic “peasantist” frame, where contracts undermine farmer “autonomy” in processes of “flexible” corporate agro‐industrial restructuring. This paper argues that a materialist analysis of CF from within capital–labour relations offers a stronger conceptual foundation for re‐synthesizing questions of market‐power. It first argues that radical notions of “peasant subsumation” conceptually mirror Marx's “formal subsumption of capital” but underplay dynamics of “real subsumption” accompanying capitalism's wider development. Drawing on the “petty commodity production” concept, it then argues that CF's “flexibility” rests in its differential content. CF's fungibility to contradictory movements of “integration” and “dispersion” enables it to emphasize different methods of surplus appropriation under shifting conditions; each corresponding to a different dominant social tendency. On the one hand, conditions of market expansion inspire integration for relative surplus appropriation through raised productivity, and CF tends to act as a “tool of proletarianization” in the wider centralization of capital. On the other, conditions of contraction motivate the dispersal of unvalorized capital, prompting efforts to raise absolute surplus appropriation, and CF tends to act as a “tool of differentiation” to concentrate agricultural capital.     

Rethinking “development”: Land dispossession for the Rampal power plant in Bangladesh

In this article, we critically review the developmental claims made for the construction of the Rampal power plant in southwestern Bangladesh, in the light of evidence about transformations of land control related to this construction project. Land has become a heavily contested resource in the salinity-intruded southwestern coastal area of Bangladesh. Changes in land control for the construction of the Rampal power plant and similar projects have intensified decades of struggles over rights and access to land. The Rampal project is labelled as “development” and claims to contribute to the elimination of poverty. However, we find that, in reality, this project leads to a reorganization of land control, rights and access in ways that perpetuate and intensify waves of eviction and exclusion of small landholders and landless laborers, thus threatening agriculture-based rural livelihoods. We analyze how four actor groups involved in land control are differently affected by the project interventions, embedded in the context of historical land tenure developments. We find that the benefits of this “development”, primarily favoring rich and powerful social groups and investors, necessitates a critical rethinking of Bangladesh's development and its claims of poverty elimination in the light of related land control practices.     

(Landlord) Theory from the South: Empire and estates on a Punjabi Frontier

Theory has occasionally shaped agrarian transformations. Utilitarian theory, for instance, influenced British colonial land revenue policies, while modernization theory spurred, via the Green Revolution, the development of capitalist farming across the global South. Yet scholarship, when it has probed the mediation of theory in agrarian change, has largely centred on the intellectual activities of Western figures. In this paper, I examine an under-appreciated theorizing actor: landlords in the global South. I explore landlords' concept-work in the former “Punjab Frontier,” a region where Baloch chiefs collaborated with the British Raj to acquire localized magisterial powers, a paramilitary apparatus, and immense “landed estates” (jagirs). To overcome various crises, certain chiefs engaged with various imperial concepts—namely, property, race, progress, contract, and freedom—and re-arranged their estates. By showing how these elites creatively embraced these concepts to maintain a colonial-fortified hegemony, I also challenge those who overstate the emancipatory and decolonial possibilities of theory from the South.     

Territorial dynamics and social differentiation among peasants in the northern highlands of Ecuador

This article addresses the process of social differentiation among peasants who were beneficiaries of the 1960s agrarian reform in the northern highlands of Ecuador. Although peasants obtained access to land that was previously in the hands of the haciendas, the incipient process of social differentiation that arose at that time was not halted. Today, peasants are incorporated into a commercial dynamic through milk production for agribusiness that has deepened the process of social differentiation between communities and within them. The supremacy of economic capital in the social field leads to a crisis in the traditional practices of reciprocity and to the incorporation of productive strategies and new “habitus” of consumption that have generated profound transformations in the territory.     

Spatial restructuring and the logic of industrial land redevelopment in urban China: I. Theoretical considerations

We harness the game-theoretic approach to propose a new conceptual framework for industrial land redevelopment research. Stemming from Harvey's notion of “urbanization of capital” and Foucault's study on “power relations”, we analyze the driver and regulator of urban spatial restructuring. We contend that the redevelopment of industrial land should be re-conceptualized as the competition for land rent gap or land rent surplus. Land redevelopment in urban China could be theoretically interpreted as multiple games between the original land-user and local government or the alliance between local government and new developers. Different equilibriums of games lead to various models/types of redevelopment.     

Dispossession through land titling: Legal loopholes and shadow procedures to urbanized forestlands in the Yucatán Peninsula

Under certain circumstances, land titling, property regime changes, and land-use conversions yield substantial profits. Yet few people possess the wealth, knowledge, and networks to benefit from these procedures. In the Yucatán Peninsula, a region recently targeted as a prominent investment location by the Mexican national government (mainly with the “Tren Maya” megaproject) and the private capital, forestlands collectively owned as ejidos by Mayan peasants are on the trend to complete privatization. Against the arguments of neo-institutional economists that in the 1990s promoted legal reforms and justified land-titling programmes worldwide to make available credit for uncapitalized peasants, individual land titling of commonly held lands in Mexico increased the overall economic value of the land, but not the investment in economic activities related to farmland and indigenous communities. Instead, those policies enabled land grabbing, dispossession, and urbanization. In this article, I describe recent private-led initiatives of ejido land titling that have redefined agricultural land's uses, meanings, and values for capitalist accumulation. In doing so, I explain how and why Mayan ejidatarios have been excluded from the monetary benefits of land titling, a top-bottom dispossession process only accomplished through shadow procedures and former privatization of ejidos' common lands.     

Problems for the plantations: Challenges for large‐scale land concessions in Laos and Cambodia

Large‐scale plantation land concessions are causing an array of serious social and environmental impacts in Southeast Asia as well as in other parts of the world. This paper, however, is focused on the many challenges and limitations that plantation developers face in southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia. These include price and market constraints, activism linked to villagers and others actors, management and financial difficulties, environmental and technical limitations, and limited government support. Investor responses to these challenges and limitations have varied. Some investors still hope that their plantations will succeed, while others have variously attempted to cut their losses and withdraw from failing investments. In particular, this paper considers how problems associated with plantation development often emerge due to fluctuating crop prices as well as poor planning that partially stems from investors adopting a “resource frontier” mindset.     

Labour reserves and surplus populations: Northern Ghana and the Eastern Cape of South Africa

This article is focused on the political economy of two of Africa's “labour reserve” regions, northern Ghana and the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The majority of residents in these regions are taken as paradigmatic examples of “surplus populations.” They exemplify a main feature that has been used to theorize the concept of surplus populations today, namely, that their labour is surplus to the needs of capital accumulation. We follow the method of Arrighi and Piselli, tracing the political economic transformations of these regions from the turn of the 20th century until the present in order to ground the concept of surplus population in a specific historical context. We argue that it is limiting to think about these populations' utility or uselessness only in relation to capital. To understand the political implications of “surplus populations,” we must think about the interrelation between the political and economic roles that they play and how these developed within specific historical contexts.     

Inter-state Competition,Land Conflicts and Resistance in India

Literature on fiscal federalism has long debated whether inter-jurisdictional competition between subnational units encourages a “race to the bottom”, with competition to attract mobile capital leading to lower taxation and expenditure, and, consequently, the under-provision of public goods. The principal concerns of this literature have been taxation and expenditure, but the ability of state governments to acquire land for industry is also critical in the context of subnational competition. In this article, the authors ask how Indian state governments resolve the tensions arising from their dual role as both wooer and regulator of capital, as they simultaneously facilitate land acquisition and engage with movements that challenge it. The authors demonstrate that there is no simple “race to the bottom”. Inter-state competition has not produced a simple equation in favour of capital and a side-lining of the concerns of those displaced. Subnational approaches to land acquisition must be understood within local political, social and economic contexts.     

Land and small farmer resistance in authoritarian Egypt

This article examines small farmer resistance in Egypt. It situates contemporary struggles in the context of the uneven success of small farmers' historical resistance to land dispossession and neoliberal reform. Struggles over land are the prime driver of rural conflict and small farmers contest state strategies that reward local elites, land owners, and supporters of the military regime. There may not be a coherent social movement able to resist contemporary patterns of capital accumulation, but there are elements of resistance that edge forward an agenda for a “political conversation” about much-needed deep social reforms. The internationally-supported Sisi presidency has used violence to consolidate military power, making open revolt difficult. Nevertheless, small farmers link struggles over access to land with poor state provisioning of water and infrastructure as a means of building resistance.     

India’s land grab deals in Ethiopia: Food security or global politics?

The so called “land grabbing” has gained increased attention since the outburst of the global financial and food crisis triggering a new trend of acquiring land for outsourcing production of food, feed and agrofuels. India as one of the newly emerging economies is investing heavily in farmland as it faces enormous challenges to sustain its rising population and growing energy demands. This paper analyses Indian land acquisitions in Ethiopia, looking into India’s motivations to acquire farmland and what incentives does Ethiopia have to lease out land to large investors. The paper draws on trade data between India and Ethiopia, expert interviews, studies and reports on the use and productivity of grabbed land. In view of the land grabbing and food security debate, the paper critically evaluates whether acquiring farmland in Ethiopia can indeed contribute to food and energy security in India.     

Deprived land-use intensification in shifting cultivation: the population pressure hypothesis revisited

This article provides a theoretical framework, based on optimal control theory, to analyze farm households' land‐use intensification decisions in forest‐based shifting cultivation (slash‐and‐burn) agroecosystems. The main results from the analysis generally coincide with the “Population Pressure Hypothesis” (PPH) as an important driver of soil degradation due to the so‐called “fallow crisis” or “deprived land‐use intensification” in shifting cultivation. However, the model also shows, from a supply perspective, that such a vicious circle of lower yields and greater forest land clearing may be avoided when the production elasticity of on‐farm labor outweighs the elasticity of substitution between farm labor and soil fertility. Furthermore, using data from shifting cultivating households from Yucatán, Mexico, we calibrate the effect of changes in population density. The numerical analysis suggests that by contrast to better‐off households, when population density increases, poorer shifting cultivating households' optimal labor allocation strategy is to further extensify land use by clearing more forest in the village common property land, or ejido land.     

Whereto land fragmentation–land grabbing in Romania? The place of negotiation in reaching win–win community-based solutions

The present study seeks to discuss and advance the understanding of land fragmentation and land grabbing within Romania's economic historiography landmarks, depicting how the origins of the land property issues are deeply embedded politically, socially, and culturally in history and still strongly exist in today's collective mind. Scientific evidence on the perceptions and behaviors of land owners regarding land grabbing was obtained through a non-probabilistic survey. The data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire, which was applied through face-to-face interviews to a sample of 52 Romanian land owners from various regions of the country. The results show that in the land owners’ perception, if land is sold to foreigners, national security is the most vulnerable aspect. Regarding the preference for the nationality of the land buyer, the majority of the people investigated prefer to sell to a Romanian buyer, thus making a clear statement in favor of the Romanian ownership of the land. The empirical results are placed in the context of a bottom-up approach—negotiation, with a high potential, unexplored in Romania, for implementing win–win agricultural solutions. Negotiation is valued as part of the answer to land fragmentation–land grabbing, a “back and forth” matter. The study recommends several measures for land use policy, tailored according to specific Romanian conditions, such as using an open access electronic registry of foreign land acquisitions, establishing a threshold for these acquisitions, and securing the preservation of the agricultural destination of land. In a political and economic context where land fragmentation and grabbing are two realities that are hard to deny and separate, a significant implication of the research is the enrichment of knowledge related to the sources of the “chronical” nature of fragmentation and to land owners’ attitude toward land grabbing, thus contributing to the design and implementation of future integrative land use solutions.     

Global land investments in the bio‐economy: evidence and policy implications

For countries dependent on agriculture, the recent wave of investor interest in farmland could, in principle, help set in motion a virtuous cycle of economic growth and poverty reduction. A large literature documenting failure of such investments documents the risks involved. To appreciate associated opportunities and challenges, we review past experience, quantify country‐level potential for area expansion versus intensification, and identify determinants of countries’ attractiveness for investors in the initial stages of the “land rush.” The fact that weak land governance seems to increase, rather than reduce, land demand justifies an emphasis on improving institutions, transparency, and accountability while at the same time providing concrete suggestions for policy and research.     

The politics of agrarian change in Bolivia's soy complex

This paper analyses the politics of agrarian change in Bolivia in the context of the development and expansion of the soy complex in Santa Cruz. It attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the nature and role of the state in relation to agrarian change through what is referred to here as the state–society–capital nexus. From an “agrarian” to a “productive” revolution in the countryside, this paper situates the rise of the Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS) to state power and its ability to maintain control over the state apparatus by balancing both accumulation and legitimation interests through its neo‐extractivist development strategy. As extractivist rents fall with the commodities bust and smallholders' exclusion becomes more apparent, the MAS' overextension in facilitating capital accumulation is beginning to show signs of a legitimacy crisis. The politics of agrarian change remain as contested as the dynamics within the state–society–capital nexus.     

Land Tenure and Tenure Regimes in Mexico: An Overview

This article provides an overview of the evolution of land tenure and tenure regimes in rural Mexico from colonial times to the present. It shows how, by the late nineteenth century, the dual system of indigenous communal tenure and Spanish and criollo landholdings was undermined by liberal legislation that sought to privatize community lands. This resulted in a process of disappropriation and concentration of land in a few hands, which created the setting for rural upheaval during the Mexican revolution and for the subsequent redistributive land reform and the creation of a 'social sector' consisting of ejidos and agrarian communities. By the 1960s, however, the reform sector began to enter into crisis. A reform of the Constitution and new agrarian legislation of 1992 opened the way to privatization of land in the social sector, expecting that this would dynamize production. It is shown that this has not been the case. In a context of globalization and asymmetric free-trade relations the crisis has only deepened.     

Revolution from below in Panguipulli: Agrarian reform and political conflict under the Popular Unity in Chile

This article examines the political conflict in rural society during the Popular Unity Government (1970–73) by focusing on the mobilization of forestry workers in Panguipulli, a district in southern Chile. Adopting land invasions as their main strategy in the struggle for land and power, Panguipulli workers experienced a radical politicization by aligning themselves with the Peasant Revolutionary Movement, the “peasant front” of the Revolutionary Left Movement. Because of its relation with this emerging “new left,” rural mobilization was a significant expression of the “revolution from below”, which challenged the Popular Unity's “Chilean road to socialism.” Moreover, because rural mobilization also took place in other areas throughout Chile where the Revolutionary Left Movement was influential, it gave rise to a grassroots project for radicalizing the government's agrarian reform. As a result, the rural “revolution from below” strongly influenced the content and trajectory of political conflict under the Popular Unity Government.     

Revisiting the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa: The promise and perils of customary practices

This paper revisits the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa by focusing on two central issues: (1) land law reform as a tool for resolving land conflicts, and (2) the role of land law reform in addressing gender inequalities. While the Bank's recent land report provides insights for improving land governance in Africa, it fails to acknowledge the exploitative and contentious politics that often characterize customary land tenure systems, and the local power dynamics that undermine the ability of marginalized groups to secure land rights. Using insights from recent fieldwork, the paper analyses the links between land law reform and conflict in Ghana, and the gendered dynamics of reforming land governance in Tanzania. These “crucial cases” illustrate how land law reform can provoke conflicts over land and threaten the rights of vulnerable populations (e.g. migrants and women) when customary practices are uncritically endorsed as a means of improving land governance. As such, the paper concludes with a series of recommendations on how to navigate the promise and perils of customary practices in the governance of land.