Chapter 5 examines the influence of customary institutions on land negotiations in Zambia, where chiefs are recognized by the state as custodians of land. The state’s recognition endows individual customary authorities with concentrated power over land titling decisions and gives them incentives to facilitate the state’s projects. However, official chiefs are members of heterogeneous customary institutions; some institutions generate ties of vertical accountability among their chiefs. A comparison of two institutions with hierarchical and nonhierarchical legacies in northern Zambia illustrates this mechanism. Statistical analyses of land titling rates across districts and among smallholder farmers support the argument that strong, hierarchical institutions make it harder to access title in their domains. This chapter shows that the official chieftaincy system did not erase the internal differences among institutions and, as a result, customary institutions continue to impact the expansion of state property rights.

Chapter 3 introduces a new theoretical model, which highlights the tensions between collective costs and concentrated benefits that make land titling political. Institutions matter because they shape how members perceive and are held accountable to these collective costs, including to the institution’s power base. After elaborating mechanisms by which institutions influence the decisions of chiefs and citizens, the chapter introduces the second element of the framework, that historical legacies impact the contemporary strength of customary institutions in Zambia and Senegal. This theory helps explain why two chiefs would have different responses to the same land deal, as a result of the institutions in which they are embedded. Similarly, it shows why citizens with high or low privilege in an institution would have different evaluations of titling. This framework creates expectations about how institutions impact aggregate patterns of land titling, which are elaborated and tested in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.

Chapter 6 investigates how customary institutions shape property rights in Senegal, where customary authorities have unofficial influence over land. A case study of land negotiations in northern Senegal illustrates how strong institutions, with hierarchical legacies, slow the erosion of customary land tenure by creating horizontal accountability among chiefs. The chapter then turns to the relationship between land titling and customary institutions throughout Senegal. Statistical analyses provide evidence that zones with hierarchical institutions have lower rates of land titling and stronger customary property rights institutions. This chapter provides further evidence that customary institutions contribute to long-term patterns of state building.