In most of sub-Saharan Africa for most of the twentieth century, land was not the scarce factor of production. Labor scarcity was considered the most important factor in shaping patterns of land use and agricultural practice, and it was a key factor in shaping land tenure regimes and the organization of rural society. As land has become scarcer relative to labor (or has gained in commercial value for other reasons), sociopolitical arrangements institutionalized in the statist and neocustomary land regimes have come under great strain. Actors’ interests and incentives, and balances of power among actors, are shifting. These changes find social and political expression in struggles over social obligations and entitlements. They also give rise to challenges to existing forms of authority over land.

Part I of this chapter discusses the phenomenon of rising pressure on the land. Part II traces social science debates about the expected effects of growing land scarcity for smallholders, identifying puzzles that become tractable, I argue, when land conflict is viewed as redistributive conflict. Part III proposes a model of African land tenure regimes and how they vary. Part IV deduces hypotheses that have to do with how land tenure institutions structure the social and political pressures arising from redistributive conflict over land.