After the American Civil War, agricultural reformers in the South called for an end to unrestricted grazing of livestock on unfenced land. They advocated the stock law, which required livestock owners to fence in their animals, arguing that the existing system (in which farmers built protective fences around crops) was outdated and inhibited economic growth. The reformers steadily won their battles, and by the end of the century the range was on the way to being closed. In this original study, Kantor uses economic analysis to show that, contrary to traditional historical interpretation, this conflict was centered on anticipated benefits from fencing livestock rather than on class, cultural, or ideological differences. Kantor proves that the stock law brought economic benefits; at the same time, he analyzes why the law's adoption was hindered in many areas where it would have increased wealth. This argument illuminates the dynamics of real-world institutional change, where transactions are often costly and where some inefficient institutions persist while others give way to economic growth.

This book addresses a puzzle in political economy: why is it that political instability does not necessarily translate into economic stagnation or collapse? In order to address this puzzle, it advances a theory about property rights systems in many less developed countries. In this theory, governments do not have to enforce property rights as a public good. Instead, they may enforce property rights selectively (as a private good), and share the resulting rents with the group of asset holders who are integrated into the government. Focusing on Mexico, this book explains how the property rights system was constructed during the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship (1876-1911) and then explores how this property rights system either survived, or was reconstructed. The result is an analytic economic history of Mexico under both stability and instability, and a generalizable framework about the interaction of political and economic institutions.

A new understanding of the causes and consequences of incomplete property rights in countries across the world.

This book provides unique insight into the relationship of institutions that govern land rights to local and national politics in African countries.

In sub-Saharan Africa, property relationships around land and access to natural resources vary across localities, districts, and farming regions. These differences produce patterned variations in relationships between individuals, communities, and the state. This book captures these patterns in an analysis of structure and variation in rural land tenure regimes. In most farming areas, state authority is deeply embedded in land regimes, drawing farmers, ethnic insiders and outsiders, lineages, villages, and communities into direct and indirect relationships with political authorities at different levels of the state apparatus. The analysis shows how property institutions - institutions that define political authority and hierarchy around land - shape dynamics of great interest to scholars of politics, including the dynamics of land-related competition and conflict, territorial conflict, patron-client relations, electoral cleavage and mobilization, ethnic politics, rural rebellion, and the localization and "nationalization" of political competition.

This book explains the origins of Chinese land politics and explores how property rights and urban growth strategies differ among Chinese cities.

This book looks at how top-down efforts to strengthen property rights are unlikely to succeed without demand for law from private firms.

In the end, the book provides a fresh, comprehensive overview of an intriguing subject, accessible to anyone with a minimal background in economics. (An introductory chapter introduces the handful of assumptions embedded in the text's economics and law).

One strand of research argues that polarized societies find it difficult to reach political consensus on appropriate responses to crises. Another strand focuses on redistribution, asking whether income inequality stifles growth by increasing political incentives to redistribute. Which is right?

The concept of property is central to political thought and crucial to understanding the ideas of key political thinkers. This book provides an up-to-date analysis of the idea, taking into account current debates about gender, slavery and colonialism, and introducing property as a contested concept in debates between thinkers, across ideologies and in political practice.Analysing key debates in the history of the idea of property, the book illustrates the ways in which the concept has informed the development of liberalism, socialism and conservatism. In addition, case studies show the intrinsic links between property as a political concept and issues of gender, race and class, grounding the theoretical work in real-life scenarios.Considering the relationship between property and power from a novel viewpoint, Laura Brace synthesises thinking from liberal and non-liberal traditions, feminist critique, critical race theory and postcolonialism. The book offers an introduction to modern political theory and to key political thinkers as well as to the particular concept of property and will be essential reading in a key area of politics, political philosophy and the history of political thought.Key Features:*Places politics of property within context of modern political theory*Engages with the work of Locke, Winstanley, Godwin, Bentham, Hegel and Marx*Covers core themes in political theory: the individual and community; freedom and authority; justice; equality; the state; human nature*Uses case studies to illuminate the arguments*Includes issues of race, gender and class