The effects of indigenous land titling on identity and local governance

• In Event: Governance Beyond the State: Social Institutions and Service Delivery

Abstract

Recent work in political science has shown that traditional or customary institutions can have important effects on governance in the developing world. In general, this work treats traditional institutions as exogenous informal institutions that have the potential to influence the functioning of the formal state. Increasingly, however, states are extending legal recognition to traditional institutions, effectively recognizing multiple systems of government within a single polity. What is the effect of this legally sanctioned “dualism” on governance and political accountability at the local level? Does it improve governance by incorporating and reinforcing effective pre-existing institutions? Or does it act as a form of modern indirect rule, making communities easier to co-opt? I investigate this question in the Philippines, focusing on a state policy that grants communal land rights to indigenous communities and entails extensive documentation of each group’s customary laws, political structures, and customs. I leverage plausibly exogenous variation in the granting of land titles stemming from state land use policies and natural resource endowments to identify the effect of the land titling process on a variety of municipal-level governance and development outcomes. I argue that the process increases in-group identity and the legitimacy of indigenous leadership and hypothesize that receiving a land title will improve outcomes that rely on high levels of local collective action, but will have varying effects on local government accountability.

Author

• Nina Katherine Siegel McMurry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology