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Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia: Undermining National Sovereignty or Tool for State Building?

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  • Tom Lavers

Abstract

type="main"> The media discourse on recent agricultural investments — frequently referred to as the ‘global land grab’ — has been quick to label these deals as ‘neo-colonial’, implying that these kinds of investments undermine national sovereignty. For the most part, the emerging academic literature on the ‘land grab’ has not critically examined this assumption. This article draws on the literature on state building and agrarian relations in Africa to construct a framework that can be used to analyse the impact of agricultural investment on state–society relations and state sovereignty. The article then uses this framework to examine the case of Ethiopia, illustrating how the Ethiopian state has directed investors to peripheral lowlands and, in doing so, has enhanced, rather than diminished, state sovereignty. As such, while the erosion of sovereignty is certainly one possible outcome of agricultural investment, it is by no means the only one, and is an assumption that should be subjected to critical analysis.

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  • Tom Lavers, 2016. "Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia: Undermining National Sovereignty or Tool for State Building?," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(5), pages 1078-1101, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:47:y:2016:i:5:p:1078-1101
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/dech.12256
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Wendy Wolford & Saturnino M. Borras Jr. & Ruth Hall & Ian Scoones & Ben White & Wendy Wolford & Saturnino M. Borras Jr. & Ruth Hall & Ian Scoones & Ben White, 2013. "Governing Global Land Deals: The Role of the State in the Rush for Land," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 44(2), pages 189-210, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ali,Daniel Ayalew & Deininger,Klaus W., 2021. "Does Title Increase Large Farm Productivity ? Institutional Determinants of Large Land-BasedInvestments’ Performance in Zambia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9702, The World Bank.
    2. Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Deininger, Klaus, 2022. "Institutional determinants of large land-based investments’ performance in Zambia: Does title enhance productivity and structural transformation?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Logan Cochrane & Eric P. H. Li & Melisew Dejene & M. Mustahid Husain, 2024. "Why foreign agricultural investment fails? Five lessons from Ethiopia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 541-558, January.
    4. Borras, Saturnino M. & Franco, Jennifer C. & Moreda, Tsegaye & Xu, Yunan & Bruna, Natacha & Afewerk Demena, Binyam, 2022. "The value of so-called ‘failed’ large-scale land acquisitions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

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