Land the State and War

Although today''s richest countries tend to have long histories of secure private property rights legal-titling projects do little to improve the economic and political well-being of those in the developing world. This book employs a historical narrative based on secondary literature fieldwork across thirty villages and a nationally representative survey to explore how private property institutions develop how they are maintained and their relationship to the state and state-building within the context of Afghanistan. In this predominantly rural society citizens cannot rely on the state to enforce their claims to ownership. Instead they rely on community-based land registration which has a long and stable history and is often more effective at protecting private property rights than state registration. In addition to contributing significantly to the literature on Afghanistan this book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on property rights and state governance from the new institutional economics perspective.