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The footprints of history: path dependence in the transformation of property rights in Kenya's Maasailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2006

ESTHER MWANGI
ESTHER MWANGI
Affiliation:
International Food Policy Research Institute
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Abstract

The recent wave of subdivision of Maasai group ranches is not an isolated event, but rather part of a broader, historical process of transformation in land relations and policy development in Maasailand. Maasai have over time supported land privatization, first by formalizing collective rights in group ranches and more recently by individualizing collective land holdings. Privatization is perceived to be an effective strategy for safeguarding Maasai land claims against appropriation by non-Maasai, the government and elite Maasai. Construction of the Uganda railway in early twentieth century and the subsequent influx of European settlers who were granted individual title to secure their investments are events that began the institutional path of privatization. The persistence and dominance of individualized arrangements regardless of other more optimal property rights options is a result of the dominance of elite interests (supported by state institutions) even as state imposed institutions replaced Maasai customary systems of land allocation.

Type
INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON INSTITUTIONS AND ECOSYSTEMS
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , August 2006 , pp. 157 - 180
Copyright
© 2006 The JOIE Foundation

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Footnotes

I thank Elinor Ostrom, Clark Gibson and Kathryn Firmin-Sellers for useful comments. I also thank two anonymous reviewers. Errors are all mine. I am most grateful to the Association of American University Women, the Compton Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics and the National Science Foundation for funding this research.