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Understanding Land Reform in Ghana

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  • Franklin Obeng-Odoom

Abstract

Land reform has become particularly prominent in development discourse in recent times. Advocates emphasize its importance for poverty reduction in underdeveloped economies. However, how reform comes about and evolves and what it is and does is situated, not universal, as neoclassical economists suggest. This paper sheds light on the meaning, evolution, and outcomes of land reform in Ghana. It draws on historical and contemporary socio-legal and political-economic sources of evidence, analyzed within a critical postcolonial institutional framework. It shows important features of continuity and change in both colonial and post-colonial land reform. While pre-colonial land tenure relations are misrepresented as entailing no market activities, the concerted effort to introduce “capitalist markets†into the land sector to produce “socially efficient outcomes†has led to contradictory results.

Suggested Citation

  • Franklin Obeng-Odoom, 2016. "Understanding Land Reform in Ghana," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 48(4), pages 661-680, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:48:y:2016:i:4:p:661-680
    DOI: 10.1177/0486613415603161
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    markets; modernization; land; development; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
    • Q24 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Land
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

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