Noer Fauzi Rachman
The author thanks Nancy Peluso, Louise Fortmann, John Bruce, Clint Carroll and Megan Ybarra for insightful comments of earlier forms of the paper, and also to Megan Ybarra and Ann Hawkins for consulting on the English language of some part of the paper.
What we call land is an element of nature inextricably interwoven with
man’s institutions. To isolate it and form a market out of it was perhaps
the weirdest of all undertakings of our ancestors.
(Polanyi, 1944:178)
Contemporary development schemes, whether in Southeast Asia or elsewhere,
require the creation of state spaces where the government can reconfigure
the society and the economy of those that are to be developed
(Scott 1998: 187)
I. Introduction
In 2005, more than ten years after funding three land administration
projects in Indonesia since 1994,[1] the World Bank (WB) confidently published “Indonesia Policy Brief.
Ideas for the Future: Land Policy, Management and Administration.” The
policy brief justifies land projects by identifying the following problems
in Indonesia’s current land policies:
· Efficient and sustainable resource use: Unless land rights are clearly
defined (as individual property rights), it is difficult to provide those
who use the land with an incentive to do so in a sustainable and efficient
manner and prevent serious degradation of resources.
· Investment climate: Businesses small and large require land to operate.
Non-transparent, corrupt, and inefficient systems of land administration
and allocation constitute serious obstacles to conducting and expanding
business.
· Credit markets access: The development of efficient financial markets will critically depend on the ability to use land as collateral and transfer it at low cost.
