Publication

Why would politicians give up power over the allocation of critical resources to community leaders? This article examines why many African governments have ceded power over the allocation of land to non-elected traditional leaders. In contrast to the existing literature, which suggests traditional leaders’ power is a hangover from the colonial period that has not been eliminated due to weak state capacity, the author argues that African politicians often choose to devolve power to traditional leaders as a means of mobilizing electoral support from non-coethnics.