Naturalizing Unequal Power and Land Distribution. The Effects of the World Bank’s Land Administration Projects

 

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.

·      Revenues for local governments: Unless at least some part of local governments’ spending is covered by its own revenue, it will be difficult to establish accountability and prevent decentralization from degenerating into a rent-seeking competition. Land taxes and land-related charges are ideal sources of such revenue.

·      Accountability and transparency: In most countries, more than half of a households’ wealth is in land and real estate. If the system to administer it is perceived to be corrupt, overstaffed, and not trustworthy, it will be difficult to maintain confidence in the rule of law and broader competence of the state.

·      Social safety net: Over and above its importance for economic development, land access is a critical safety net for millions of people that can help prevent destitution. Insecure land tenure can seriously undermine this and with it the ability of poor people to move out of poverty.”^[2]

 

Most of these claims are not unique. The Bank’s recipe for Indonesia’s land problem – which is also created by the Bank -- has been directed by particular project framework, i.e. pro-market land administrations, managements and policies. Of course there are some differences – for example, if we compare the Indonesia Land Administration Project (ILAP) to the Thailand Land Titling Project (TLTP).^[3] But, as explained by the WB staff, their basic ingredients are typically: (i) legal, regulatory and policy reform; (ii) institutional reform; (iii) systematic land registration (first-time titling); (iv) support for on-demand titling and development of subsequent land transactions; (v) land valuation; (vi) improved service delivery for land agencies; and (vii) capacity building for government, private sector and academe (Bell, 2006).

I will argue that the WB Indonesia land projects are part of global systematic effort to promote pro-market land regularization. The processes to reform land administrations, managements and policies include: providing money through loans and grants, deploying experts/consultants, producing authoritative knowledge and expertise, creating epistemic communities, and last but not least, generating demand for “land administration” services. The WB’s land projects and its proponents have propagated market ideology, and used benevolent rhetoric to convince its government-clients. In this paper, I will dismantle the rhetoric and show consequences of the real practice of the land registration, its larger institutional framework and hidden agendas of pro-market land policies. In doing so, I will use the conceptual framework offered by Bello, Cunningham and Rau, who propose that 

“What usually occurs is a much more complex social process in which ideology mediates between interests and policy. An ideology is a belief-system – a set of theories, beliefs, and myths with some internal coherence – that seeks to universalize the interests of one social sector to the whole community. In market ideology, for instance, freeing market forces from state restraints is said to work to the good not only of [big] business, but also to that of the whole community. Transmitted through social institutions such as universities, corporations, churches or parties, an ideology is internalized by large number of people, but especially by members of the social groups whose interests it principally expresses. An ideology thus informs the actions of many individuals and groups, but it becomes a significant force only when certain conditions coincide (Bello et al 1994:3).” 

 

That conceptual framework, my familiarity with the WB’s Indonesia land projects,^[4] and my understanding on magnitude of the land administration project across the world, lead me to argue that this global systematic attempt have consequences as follows: (a) the creation of a huge land registration business, and (b) reinforcing the existing unequal land distribution, and in the long run tend to create a new concentration of land in the hand of speculator, elites and large business on the one hand, and a new dispossessed smallholders on the other hand. 

II. Benevolent rhetoric and characterization of Indonesia’s land problems

Open almost any official publication on Indonesia’s land “problems” produced by the World Bank (WB) and you are likely to find it starting with the same simple and purposive image. A 1994 WB report, “Indonesia: Environment and Development,” provides a typical case. The question of Indonesia’s land management almost invariably is introduced as highly complex, in part due to a lack of clarity in the legal framework for land acquisitions and in part due to the complicated bureaucratic procedures and the rent-seeking mechanisms that are involved. These publications also state that “land markets are not well developed”, and that this “constrains the allocation of land to its highest and best use”. One main agenda is to establish more effective land markets: “to improve efficiency and achieve “highest and best use” of land, rely more on market forces. Specifically, to strengthen ability of land markets to function by: clarifying and simplifying the legal framework; expediting land titling and registration; improving the availability of land information; ‘moving to market prices’ for development purposes; and reviewing current practices of land acquisition permits” (World Bank 1994:207).^[5]

The current example is the World Bank’s 2005 “Indonesia Policy Brief: Ideas for the Future. Land Policy, Management and Administration:” 

“… the magnitude of the challenge in comparison with other countries: While Indonesia has an estimated 80 million parcels of land, only 17 million are registered, implying that 63 million lack legal protection. Recognizing occupancy (possession) as evidence of land ownership and accepting informal evidence for it, e.g. tax receipts combined with testimony by neighbors could greatly increase tenure security for poor people, formalize millions of informal land transfers and thus eliminate an enormous source of conflict, and improve incentives for investment on the large areas which ongoing efforts at formal land registration will not be able to cover in the foreseeable future.” (Italics added by NFR) 

 

It is not surprising to one who is familiar with the foreign aid business (e.g. Hancock 1989, George 1992) that the WB always legitimizes its projects under the rhetoric of utilitarianism, which is a philosophy originally proposed by Jeremy Bentham that explicitly argues that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility. In the 2004 Land Management and Policy Development Project (LMPDP) in Indonesia, they state that the “overall goal of the project is to contribute to government programs in achieving poverty reduction, economic growth and promote full utilization of land resources in a sustainable manner” (World Bank 2004:3).

Another trope that the Bank uses to legitimize their projects is claiming that their projects are solely based on requests from or at least in negotiation with their client-governments.  They always reproduce their legitimacy by claiming merely to serve their clients. In their first study report on land issues in Indonesia, “Indonesia, Land Resource Management and Planning” (1991), they start the preface with strong sentence that this “document has been prepared at the request of the Government of Indonesia to address some of the emerging issues and challenges in the land markets, resource planning, and management” (World Bank 1991:v). LASA, a consortium of land administration consultants from Australia, and Indonesia National Land Agency (NLA) claim that the 1991 “Indonesia: Land Resource Management and Planning” 

“was received well by the GOI [Government of Indonesia], and during discussion on the report, GOI requested the Bank to prepare a project that would address some of the important and impending issues concerning management and planning of land resources. Based on the request, a World Bank mission visited Indonesia in April and May 1992 to identify components and relevant issues in order to identify the components and preparation requirements of the proposed Land Administration Project. It was agreed between GOI and the World Bank that the project, which could be the first in a series of Bank projects [in Indonesia] designed to focus on land-related issues, would basically concentrate on improving land administration, especially the aspects of land titling/registration and the related institutional framework” (National Land Agency and Land Administration Systems Australia 1993: 20, Italics added by NFR).

 

Unsurprisingly, a high-level Indonesian government official absorbed the ideas with its multiple agendas and he re-promoted that the idea is the best, and in his turn he amplifies these as the government’s policies. The Head of the NLA states: 

“During 36 years since the enactment of Basic Agrarian Law (Act No. 5 Year 1960) and Government Regulation No. 10 Year 1961 concerning Land Registration, the cadastre has only been able to register around 12 million land parcels and titles. But, during only 6 years after the enactment of Government Regulation No. 24 Year 1997 concerning Land Registration that I have to admit is an outcome of the Bogor Declaration,^[6] the cadastre has successfully registered around 13 million land parcels and titles through systematic and sporadic registration. The systematic one had been conducted through an adjudication process and with the assistances of the World Bank, the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (AIDAB), and the Land Administration System Australia (LASA) within the Indonesian Land Administration Project (ILAP).

In terms of the numbers, this outcome is significant. Nevertheless, the challenge is (sic) still confronts us today and in the future, because we still have around 60 million land parcels have not been registered yet. To deal with this challenge, beginning in the fiscal year of 2005, we will continue to develop the cadastre through a new project called the Indonesian Land Management and Policy Development Programs (ILMPDP), with also the assistance of the World Bank and International Development Association.” (Nasution 2004:2-3, Italics added by NFR)”

 

The Government of Indonesia (GOI) is not only a passive recipient.  The ILAP is also the GOI’s project. Sujana Royat, Director for Spatial Planning and Land Management - National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), enthusiastically stated that “the Indonesian Land Policy Reform is one of the national development priorities,” and he looks for assistance from the donor community such as “supports to the policy, strategies, and action programs, supports to laws and regulations improvement, establishment of land system; land tenure, land registrations, land titling, etc., land information system, land services for the poor, capacity building on land management and administration, joint research on land policy issues, including creation of a sort of land policy institute, specific studies and policy research on customary land and laws, civil society empowerment, establishment of national or regional land forums, supports to stakeholders, such as; NGOs, universities, research institutions, community-based organizations, traditional groups, etc., and other types of assistances” (Royat 2002: 15). 

This call was ultimate intention of the Bank intervention (Cammack 2004:199). Two prominent WB economists, Klaus Deininger and Hans Binswanger, clearly re-articulate the Bank’s agenda, which is independent of any client’s request. The agendas are: “to enhance investment by clarifying property rights and establishing an institutional framework that guarantees the security of these rights; to increase efficiency by facilitating increased transferability of land (use) rights in rental and possibly sales markets; and to improve the integration of land and other (financial) markets. In addition, governments can consider imposing a land tax and establishing land information systems” (Deininger and Binswanger 1999:265).

These agendas are firmly determined before they hire any experts or consultants to make any studies to design a specific national government project. Any studies that they and their consultants make have been oriented towards enhancing the WB as a knowledge-based institution and producing what Goldman (2001, 2006) calls authoritative knowledge. In order to establish what it proclaims itself in World Development Report 1998-99, the globe’s ‘knowledge bank,’ it mobilizes resources (money, experts, information, network, etc.) to create innovative knowledge production (Mehta 2001, Goldman 2001; King 2002). The produced knowledge not only reaffirms their main agenda, but in turn poses their agenda as authoritative. The WB Indonesia land administration projects have produced knowledge in various forms such as study reports, discussion papers, workshop proceedings, etc. through employing experts. This is not to say that there is no any critical thinking produced, nor that there are no alternative agendas posed by hired experts, but the WB has particular ways to use knowledge produced by various activities that they assigned, and their decision-making processes are based on selected and particular knowledge compatible with their strategy. 

III. Global network to promote pro-market land policy reform

The WB’s land projects are not unique to Indonesia. The Thailand Land Titling Project starting in 1984 was their pilot project.  The project partners are the Department of Land - the Royal Thai Government, the WB, and the government of Australia (AusAID).  The overall project goal was to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Department of Land by providing training and expertise in cadastral surveying and mapping, title deeds issuance, land valuation, and information technology. Now the WB has completed four five-year phases, which concluded in 2004, and started the last phase of twenty-five year project. At completion, it will have delivered approximately 13 million titles to Thai landowners. Perhaps for promotional purposes, the project received the World Bank Award for Excellence in 1997. In various papers, World Bank, AusAID, and the consultants promote the Thailand Land Titling Project as an outstanding success story that acts as a benchmark for land administration and managements and also for inter-agency cooperation (e.g. Rattanabirabongse et al 1998, Feder and Nishio 1999, Ausaid 2000, 2001, Bowman 2004, Burn 2004).^[7] WB claims that the Thailand Land Titling Project 

“has led to its involvement in this area (sic) and over 50 land titling projects world wide are under implementation ... the Thailand Land Titling Programme [has] become standard for the World Bank and for some bilateral donors including for example, USAID” (Holstein and Munro, “International Impact of the Thailand Land Titling Programme”, Department of Lands, Ministry of Interior, 2003, as quoted by William 2003:12).

 

After more than 20 years since their pilot project in Thailand, there are increasing expenditures to make the land markets work through expanding land titling, improving land management and institution, and reforming land policies. Recent data unveiled by Bell (2006), the WB staff, shows the magnitude of their efforts (see Table 1 and 2). 

 

Table 1: Lending for dedicated land administration projects (US Million)

Region	Under supervision	FY01- FY06	FY95-FY00	Before FY95
AFR	48	48	46
EAP	124	129	219	30
ECA	451	426	109	80
LAC	447	430	386	29
MNA	-	-	-	33
SAR	5	5
Total	1,074 (sic)	1,037 (sic)	760	172

Source: World Bank, Lending Database, 2006 as quoted in Bell (2006).

 

Table 2: Number of projects with land administration component/s

 

Region	FY01- FY06	FY95-FY00	Before FY95
AFR	28	15	16
EAP	13	9	9
ECA	16	10	3
LAC	8	9	13
MNA	3	3	5
SAR	6	3	5
Total	74	49	51

Source: World Bank, Lending Database, 2006 as quoted in Bell (2006).

 

Note:

Table 1 displays total World Bank lending for land administration by fiscal year (FY) and region. It highlights a significant, though regionally highly uneven, increase in total lending with the total amount of lending under supervision currently standing at $1.1 billion. Total commitments in FY01-06 were above $1 billion, compared to $760 million in FY95-00, and only $172 million before FY95. However, the regional distribution is not uniform, with two regions, Europe and Central Asia Region (ECA) and Latin America and Caribbean Region (LAC), making up almost 90% of the size of the portfolio, followed by East Asia and Pacific Region (EAP), and virtually no lending in Africa (AFR), South Asia Region (SAR), and Middle East North Africa Region (MNA). One of the key reasons for such a vast difference is that the background work needed to underpin land administration projects in the MNA has really only just started. Given the importance of land policy for a wide range of situations, plus the Bank’s shift from project- towards policy-based lending, it is not surprising to find an increasing number of projects with land policy or administration components. Table 2 illustrates that the number of these interventions amounted to 74 in FY01-06.

 

The WB is not the only actor to fund these land administration projects. Jointly with the two regional banks (Inter-American Development Bank and Asian Development Bank), and donor agencies from various developed countries (DFID, GTZ, EU, DANIDA, USAID), the World Bank manages more than one hundred loan and grant based land administration projects in more that 50 countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa and post-communist countries.^[8]These projects also reflect huge prospects for land administration business. An advisor for the WB exposes the strategic link between land administration projects and business in land administration in his paper “Mapping the Business Processes Before Mapping the Ground” (Azad 2000: 16).^[9]Tony Burns, Managing Director, Land Equity International Pty Ltd, a leading Australian consultant firm in land administration, describes how land administration in developing countries is a very good business. At the close of his keynote address in the 2001 World Land Registration Congress, Brisbane, Australia, he stated:

“There is no question in my mind that there is a market for strengthening land administration systems – a market that is growing strongly. Even after many years in the business, I never cease to be surprised by the range of organizations, range of individuals – not only the traditional surveyors, lawyers and records management professionals, but other specialists including planners, and social and environmental scientists – and the range of clients that is active in the marketplace.

… I see a very bright future for the Australian industry” (Burns 2001: 16).

 

It is absolutely true that land administration is a huge market but the land administration market is not an open market by any means. The market is restricted only to members of a closed network: the WB and other international donor agencies, higher officials in government agencies, and international/national consultant-cum-academic.^[10] The network is directed by a very influential “epistemic community,” to use Hass’s (2002) term,^[11] in order to create pro-market land policies in developing and ex-communist countries: the WB’s Thematic Group on Land Policy and Administration (usually called The Land Thematic Group) and International Federation of Surveyors (FIG). 

The Land Thematic group is composed of “about 120 specialists with a wide range of professional background working on issues related to rights of lands and the control of access to land, and the use and disposal of its associated natural resources to promote economically efficient, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable development. The goal of this group is to provide a forum to exchange ideas and experiences, and technical and financial support to studies on priority issues and new approaches in land policy.”^[12] FIG is a federation of national surveyor associations and the only international body that represents all surveying disciplines. It is an UN-recognized non-governmental organization (NGO) and its aim is “to ensure that the disciplines of surveying and all who practice them meet the needs of the markets and communities that they serve. It realizes its aim by promoting the practice of the profession and encouraging the development of professional standards” (FIG 2004).^[13]  The core of network activities is dedicated to developing authoritative knowledge on land administration and management. The network develops and maintains authoritative knowledge through mainly grant and loan related activities, and also via knowledge production such as teaching in academic institution, doing research and publications, professional trainings, workshops, publication, seminars and conferences, etc. They develop some common platforms and package them as official documents – they used United Nations in the title of some declarations in order to make them seem more authoritative. For example, the 1996 UN-FIG Bogor Declaration on Cadastral Reform^[14] and the 1999 UN-FIG Bathurst Declaration Land Administration for Sustainable Development.^[15] In 2001, the network set up the “International Land Registration Association”^[16] with a single mission: ”to promote excellence in land registration around the world.” Their vision is “(t)o share information, knowledge and experiences through partnership with Association members, to benchmark and improve developed land registration systems and provide advice and assistance to jurisdictions developing or establishing secure, efficient land registration systems,” with a primary goal “(t)o become the pre-eminent world body for land registration recognized as an authoritative source of independent knowledge and advice.” (Italics added by NFR). 

IV.  Denaturalize the benevolent rhetoric

It is clear now that the WB’s land projects have propagated market ideology, and used benevolent rhetoric to convince its government-clients. Efforts to promote pro-market land policies emerge from a pro-market critique of historical (state-directed) land policies that have increased in prevalence since its inception at the end of the Cold War. They have manifested in four broad policy types: privatization and individualization of public/communal lands, privatization and individualization of property rights in state and collective farms in (ex)communist and capitalist settings, promotion of land rental markets, and promotion of land sales (Borras 2006).

Using the perspective as outlined in the introduction, I critically understand why Joko Walijatun and Christ Grant (the high official of National Land Agency and team leader of AusAID consultants from BHP-Enginering, Australia) confidently claim “(t)he LAP is thus not so much a project but a new way of life. This new way of life will begin to emerge as the systematic registration activities proceeds and the market economy in land begins to grow” (Walijatun and Grant 1996:8. Italics added by NFR). In another work, Grant reaffirms the idea that (l)and titling is however a long term program aimed at bringing about reforms to the national system of land administration. Thus it is not a series of activities and procedures, which will disappear once the time or the budget has expired. Rather it is a series of activities and procedures, which while initially developmental, must progressively become embedded into the routine activities of the agency. To be successful, people and institutions need to change. This change needs to be driven by leaders with vision so that the project becomes a ‘way of life’. The challenge for the individuals responsible for project implementation is to provide the management of the change through better institutional linkages and integration” (Grant 1999:6. Italics added by NFR).

In claiming that the project becomes a ‘way of life’, its implementers expect that they can convince and reach broader audience and represent the interests of a whole society. The World Bank land projects are also popular and acceptable for the government clients because they claim to improve economic growth and reduce poverty, as shown in their famous book, “Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction, a World Bank Policy Research Report” (World Bank 2003). The document written by Klaus Deininger (economist in the WB’s Development Research Group) has already become a reference document for staff in the bank and partner institutions, key to the construction of land policies in many developing countries in the years to come, and also influencing debates around contemporary land policies. Shared with Deininger, pro-market promoters such as Hernando de Soto (2000) confidently argue that land titling can reduce poverty, but land titling by itself is not a sufficient condition. It is typical to say the project will reduce poverty only if (a) a variety of enabling preconditions are met, (b) needed complementary components are included, and (c) beneficiaries are consciously targeted (Bledsoe, 2006).

WB always justifies the project with the rhetoric of poverty reduction because of their mandate “Our Dream is a World Free of Poverty.” The problem is always the yawning gap between their claim and performance. To evaluate the effect of land registration on its own terms will be useful as constructive feedback for the project designers and implementers. The WB hired researchers to conduct evaluation studies to assess processes and the results of land titling under the Indonesia Land Administration Project (Hardjono 1999 and SMERU 2002). Soerendra (2006) conducted research on the effect of land titling on the living conditions of urban poor in slum area. Research shows that the price of lands significantly increased after titling, and there is increasing trend to sell the lands too. With the official deed, the land owners feel more secure about the status of their land, but there are also insecurities created in the titling process, because they produce a new category “unknown land” (tanah tidak dikenal), meaning that the land agency can not provide the landowner with a deed, because the applicant, who is the current landholder, cannot administratively prove that they are the owner of the land. This evidence proves that the project broke the promise that they will use alternative methods in recognizing the existing landholders. After the project finished, there was little evidence that poor people use land as collateral to access credit from the bank. From both sets of evaluations, I conclude here that the project facilitates the sale of land, but will not necessarily reduce poverty through titling. 

I will also use the debate on the effects of Thailand Land Titling Projects not only to address the gaps between the project’s claims and what happened in the ground, but also to show different perspectives used by different parties to reach different conclusions. Studies by World Bank economists provide convincing results that land registration massively implemented by the Thailand Land Titling Project positively affects financial development and economic growth (Byamugisha 1999a, 1999b. See also Feder and Nishio 1998). There is a strong need, however, to examine the on-the-ground effects of the titling program from the peasant’s perspective that will illustrate critical effects of such programs that may easily be lost and ignored by abstract analysis of aggregate data. An official study conducted by WB East Asia and Pacific Region Office, Regional Study on Land Administration, Land Markets, and Collateralized Lending, shows “(t)he risks of land titling include the concentration of land and increased landlessness due to distress sales that occur after the marketability of land increases but before safety nets are strengthened and the incomes of the poor improve”, and they claimed that ”(t)he socioeconomic impact assessment of the program in Thailand revealed neither an increase in land concentration nor an increase in landlessness in project areas.” (World Bank, 2004:iii. Italics added by NFR)

It may be the case, as Feder and Nishio (1998) and Byamugisha (1999a, 1999b) argue, that there is financial development and increasing economic growth because of the project. But ignoring negative effects on the rural poor leaves significant social costs out of the calculation. Worse, it begs the key question of who benefits from the process at what (and whose) cost. Some scholar activists such as Leonard and Ayutthaya (2003) and (Miyake 2003) provide counter-arguments based on the on-the-ground data. Leonard and Ayutthaya show that 

“it is difficult to see in practice how increased land prices have benefited the poor and the landless. For one thing, high prices increase the barriers to access land for the landless, including new generations of farmers. The acquisition of land itself becomes a major long-term debt for new landowners, which diverts a substantial proportion of future income into mortgage repayments. Where prices rise sharply out of line with local incomes, the exclusion of poor purchasers is inevitable. A more fundamental problem relates to the commodification of land, the process of transforming it into a freely tradable asset. This process encourages the purchase of land by wealthier groups. As stated above, the very existence of title can vastly increase the value of land. This in itself creates a significant incentive for rich entrepreneurs to buy up untitled land, pay their registration dues, and make a very quick profit” (Leonard and Ayutthaya 2003: 10).

 

They note that land titling also permitted urban speculators to buy up formerly collective village lands, without villagers’ knowledge, leave them idle and use them as collateral for massive loans at the height of Thailand’s real estate bubble. As a consequence of the titling program, tenure security decreased for some peasants, while the land was used to secure speculative loans, ultimately resulting in large-scale default. Miyake confirms their observation and shows that the titling project created two fundamental causes of today’s land conflict in northern Thailand; the commercialization and privatization of communal land, and the system of private property rights that carries the concept of exclusion. 

“Supported by legal rights, land became a secure commodity, and a lot of capitalist bought it for speculation and left idle, while the poor farmers lost land. In addition, the penetration of commercialism in rural areas also worsened the life level of local farmers. Traditionally, with the concept of sharing and mutuality, the problem of landlessness and poverty has been mitigated. However the concept of private property right of exclusion did not allow any room for the traditional way. By the economic crisis in 1997, the villagers find it harder and harder to make ends meet on the one hand, and the more and more land plots were abandoned in Lamphun Province on the other. Contesting for use rights of such uncultivated land, landless villagers have instigated the direct action of taking it and cultivating it. (Miyake 2003:15)

 

Because of this new property regime, the police arrested 33 farmers who illegally trespassed on new private property. But as reported by Miyake “(w)hile the villagers negotiate with the dominant group, they continue to cultivate the land because they know by now that the legal right to access to land cannot be given easily to the poor farmers” (Miyake 2003:16).

Discussion on the Thailand case opens up an important lesson that efforts “to universalize the interests of one social sector to the whole community” (Bello et al 1994:3) is never complete and always contradictory in character. There is no guarantee that the hegemonic efforts in homogenizing property right system will be fully welcomed by targeted people. There a always space of resistance where some groups of marginalized/victimized people and their allies conduct collective actions, such as land occupation, to challenge and critique the newly imposed property systems. In the Thailand case, the critiques are framed and amplified by a group of peasant movement leaders, NGOs and concerned scholars:

“The land administration project of the Bank – including surveys, mapping, cadastres, registries and granting of individual, alienable titles – while they try to address long-standing demand by various rural groups for security of tenure, are designed primarily to create the conditions for “functioning land markets,” and all to frequently result in a massive or on-going sell-off of land, in the re-concentration of property and in increase in conflicts inside our communities, as we have seen in the case of Thailand” (Final Declaration of International Seminar on the Negative Impact of World Bank Market Based Land Reform, in Barros et al 2003:408).

 

 

IV. Conclusion and notes for future research 

 

My conclusions on the role of the World Bank land projects in promoting pro-market land regularization are twofold. Firstly, the WB land projects are not only a bundle of projects, but systematic and long-term efforts to homogenize the land property regime in developing and ex-communist countries. In a country such as Indonesia and Thailand where radical effort to address unequal land distribution has essentially been denied as a main strategy for rural development, the WB land projects are seductive because they naturalize the unequal power and land distribution through complete overhaul of land administrations, managements and policies to achieve economic growth and poverty eradication, which are two development mantras of government administrations in developing countries. Second, the stories about the effects of the projects in Indonesia and Thailand indicate that more systematic and empirical research is needed to make the effects of the regularization visible to anyone promoting access to land and other resources for rural villagers landless as main strategy for eradicating persistent poverty. The previous researches amplify Baraclough’s critical observation that “(R)egistering land titles and facilitating … transactions between willing sellers and willing buyers do not by themselves change power relationships in favour of the rural poor. In many situations, such policies are likely to reinforce agrarian structures by providing large landholders and speculators with additional legal protection, while leaving the bargaining power of the poor unchanged or diminished.” (1999:33)

In his article “What the World Bank Means by Poverty Reduction, and Why it Matters” Cammack (2004) critiques WB‘s poverty reduction agendas, noting that “while the Bank’s commitment to poverty reduction is real, within limits, it is conditional upon, and secondary to, a broader goal. Its principal objective is the systematic transformation of social relations and institutions in the developing world, in order to generalize and facilitate proletarianization and capitalist accumulation on a global scale, and build specifically capitalist hegemony through the promotion of legitimating schemes of community participation and country ownership” (Cammack 2004:190). Cammack with resonates with recent interpretations of Karl Marx’s notion of “primitive” or “original accumulation”, which has reinvigorated various new research agendas mainly in political economy, geography, political ecology and development studies (Glassman 2006). Traditional interpretations of “primitive accumulation” conceived of it as a one-time historical phenomenon of dispossession, creating a “free” labor force.  In contrast, newer interpretations argue that capitalist accumulation depends on the on-going, often violent, exclusion of competitors from resources (Perelman 2000, De Angelis 1999, 2001).

David Harvey has made major contributions to this interpretation, using “accumulation by dispossession” to explain current patterns of global capitalist expansion (2003).  Under the current moment of neoliberalism, he claims, privatization and commodification take myriad forms, through which capitalists actively manufacture these new forms and realms of proletarization. Following Polanyi’s “double movement” (1944), Harvey (2003) argues that accumulation by dispossession also generates social movements to confront its depredations. Moreover, when social movements erect barriers to capital, capitalist institutions move to dismantle these barriers. Capital institutions also push the state to use its coercive powers to create conditions conducive to further enclosure and exclusion (Harvey 2005).

Employing that theoretical discussion, it should be important research agenda to examine the way in which various effects of the WB pro-market land regularization efforts, intersecting with various existing government agrarian policies and practices create new constraints (or may be also opportunities) for agrarian movement groups who challenge the existing regimes of capital accumulation and repression, and promote redistributive and restitutive land reform policies for landless peasants and indigenous peoples. Take Indonesia as an example, peasant and indigenous movements demanding land and other agrarian reforms have emerged across the nation since the end of Suharto’s authoritarian regime in the late 1990s, and the shifts to democratic and decentralized government during 2000 until now. Indonesia’s resurgence of movements is particularly striking in light of the agrarian struggles and massacres of the mid-1960s, the repression of political activity under Suharto, and the massive dispossessions of land and resources experienced during Suharto’s 32-year regime (Li 2000, 2001, Aspinal 2004, Lucas and Warren 2005). ***

Berkeley, February 15, 2006

 

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^[1] In the appendix, I briefly sketch the projects and their results.

^[2] The full text can be found in http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/Publication/280016-1106130305439/617331-1110769011447/810296-1110769045002/LandPolicy.pdf. They also provide the Bahasa Indonesia version in: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/Publication/280016-1106130305439/617331-1110769011447/810296-1110769073153/Landpolicy.pdf. Last accessed is December 6, 2006

^[3] I will discuss the Thailand Land Titling Project in Part III of the paper.

^[4] I have started to monitor the WB’s Indonesia land projects during my activities in the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (Konsorsium Pembaruan Agraria or KPA) as Chair person in 1995-2002. There are four memorandums that KPA released concerning the project (Konsorsium Pembaruan Agraria 1996a, 1996b, 1997a, and 1997b).

^[5] In the same year, Sutanu Behuria (1994) produced a policy analysis for and published by the Asia Development Bank, which explains that “the implementation of a large number of Bank-financed and World-Bank financed projects across the sectors was seriously affected by … land acquisition difficulties...” and “the Bank should provide financial assistance to Indonesia to accelerate the process of land registration and titling as well as provide technical assistance for codifying and simplifying the laws and procedures with regard to land transfers and use” (Behuria 1994: 10).

^[6]  About so-called “Bogor Declaration” see part III.

^[7] From 19-21 February 2003 Department of Lands (DoL) in the Ministry of Interior of the Royal Thai Government (RTG) hosted a World Bank, AusAID and FAO sponsored conference in Bangkok, “Thailand Land Titling Programme - Challenges To Land Administration” attended by 200 delegates from the Asia, Central Europe and the Americas.

^[8] For more recent (2005) and extensive list including DFID, GTZ, EU, DANIDA, USAID projects, see http://www.landadmin.co.uk/Projects/Projects_1.htm (Last accessed on January 4, 2006).

^[9] Azzad writes “… backed up by tangible results that, by standing the traditional motto of land administration ‘Let’s map the ground so that cadastral mapping and surveying can be more easily done’ on its head and saying, “I have a land administration business process to improve, how can I use land administration investments to do so?” we can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of land registration and cadastre investments significantly” (Azad 200:16).

^[10] Some experts easily shift their positions, for example from academic position in university into fellow in international-consultant firms. For example, Ian Williamson and Don Grant, who actively promote “Sustainable development is just rhetoric without appropriate land administration systems” refer their positions as professor in University of Melbourne, fellows in some international consulting agencies in Australia, and have conducted research and consultancy world-wide including for AusAID, WB, some major UN international organization such as the United Nation - Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) - Division for Sustainable Development - New York, UNDESA - Division for Statistics - New York; The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNCHS) – Habitat - Nairobi; the United Nation Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) – Rome, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) - Addis Ababa. See Williamson and Grant 2002. Another example is Keith Cliford Bell, responsible person for supporting land administration projects throughout the East Asia region, and also works in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Philippines and Vietnam. He joined the WB in 2003 after he worked for international consulting agencies in Australia. Prior to this he held a range of senior positions in Australian Government, including general manager in Planning and Land management of the Australian Capital territory Government, and Director of the National Land data Center in the Australia Government.

^[11] According Hass, “(a) epistemic community is a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence n a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within domain or issue-area. .. (T)hey have (1) a shared set of normative and principled beliefs, which provide a value-based rationale for the social action of community members; (2) shared causal beliefs, which are derived from their analysis of practices leading or contributing to a central set of problems in their domain and which then serve as the basis for elucidating the multiple linkages between possible policy actions and desired outcomes; (3) shared notions of validity – that is, intersubjective, internally defined criteria for weighing and validating knowledge in the domain of their expertise; and (4) a common policy enterprise – that is, a set of common practices associated with a set of problems to which their professional competence is directed, presumably out of the conviction that human welfare will be enhanced as a consequence” (Hass 1992:3).

^[12] http://Inweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/ardext.nsf/24ByDocName/AboutUs (accessed December 4, 2006). The Group is currently co-chaired by Frank Fulgence K. Byamugisha (Principal Operations Officer in The WB’s Rural Development & Natural Resource Sector Unit), and Klaus W. Deininger (Economist with the WB’s Development Research Group). See also www.worlbank.org/landpolicy/ (accessed December 4, 2006).

^[13] For detail information on activities of this network visit  http://www.fig.net (accessed December 4, 2006).. See also International Federation of Surveyors, Information 2003 -2006. http://www.fig.net/general/leaflet_english_2004.pdf (accessed December 4, 2006).  

^[14] The so-called “the Bogor Declaration” was prepared at an Inter-Regional Meeting of Experts on Cadastre held in Bogor in 18-22 March 1996. The objective of the meeting was “to develop a document setting out the desirable requirements and options for cadastral systems of developing countries in the Asia and Pacific region and to some extent globally.” It is interesting to underline how they claim the meeting a “United Nations Interregional Meeting of Experts on the Cadastre” among others because of the United Nations Department for Development Support and Management Services (UN-DDSMS) are involved in sponsoring the meeting, together with the Indonesian State Ministry for Agrarian Affairs, the National Land Agency (BPN), the National Coordination Agency for Surveys and Mapping (BAKOSURTANAL) and the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG). The meeting also receives funding from AusAID, the Australian agency for international development. The meeting was attended by experts from Australia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, People's Republic of China, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, Thailand and Vietnam. For full text, see http://www.sli.unimelb.edu.au/fig7/Bogor/BogorDeclaration.html (accessed November 4, 2006).

^[15] The 1999 United Nations-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration for Sustainable Development was prepared at an International Workshop on Cadastral Infrastructures for Sustainable Development in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, on 18-22 October 1999. The conference was organized jointly by the FIG and some United Nations bodies (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Statistic Division, New York, United Nations - Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development, New York; United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), Nairobi; United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Rome; United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Addis Ababa; World Bank, Washington DC; Meeting of Officials of Land Administration (MOLA) under the direction of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE); and Permanent Committee for GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP) which was created by the United Nation Regional Cartographic Conference (UNRCC) for Asia and the Pacific). The conference was attended by “40 experts in land administration from 5 continents, 25 developing and developed countries, 5 UN agencies and WB, and FIG.” For full text, see  http://www.sli.unimelb.edua.au/UNConf99/proceeding.htm. accessed December 4, 2006).

^[16] The International Land Registration Association was created by the unanimous decision of delegates at the inaugural World Land Registration Congress held in Brisbane, Australia in November 2001. Instead of declaring individual or organizational membership, they put name of states as their members. There 30 states that was written in their prospectus, i.e. Australia (all States and Territories), Brunei Darussalam, China, East Timor, England, Fiji, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Kiribati, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mauritius, Namibia, New Brunswick (Canada), New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, Samoa, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Switzerland, Uganda, Vietnam, and Wales. See: International Land Registration Association – Prospectus, 2002. See: International Land Registration Association, Prospectus 2002,http://www3.telus.net/lorenleader/papers/ilra_prospectus.pdf (accessed on November 5, 2006)