IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/prodev/v6y2006i2p123-145.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Redistributive land reform in ‘public’ (forest) lands? Lessons from the Philippines and their implications for land reform theory and practice

Author

Listed:
  • Saturnino M. Borras Jr

    (Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Kortenaerkade 12, 2518AX The Hague, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The conventional view in the land reform literature does not consider distribution of ‘public’ lands to landless and near-landless peasants as redistributive land reform. Questioning the (formal) private property bias in land reform theory and practice, this paper rethinks some fundamental concepts and re-examines actual distribution in public lands in the Philippines. It concludes that redistributive reform can, in fact, occur in this type of land and the political process through which this outcome can be achieved could be highly contentious.

Suggested Citation

  • Saturnino M. Borras Jr, 2006. "Redistributive land reform in ‘public’ (forest) lands? Lessons from the Philippines and their implications for land reform theory and practice," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 123-145, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:prodev:v:6:y:2006:i:2:p:123-145
    DOI: 10.1191/1464993406ps132oa
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1191/1464993406ps132oa
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1191/1464993406ps132oa?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johnson, Craig & Forsyth, Timothy, 2002. "In the Eyes of the State: Negotiating a "Rights-Based Approach" to Forest Conservation in Thailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 1591-1605, September.
    2. Leach, Melissa & Mearns, Robin & Scoones, Ian, 1999. "Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 225-247, February.
    3. Jean‐Philippe Platteau, 1996. "The Evolutionary Theory of Land Rights as Applied to Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Critical Assessment," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 29-86, January.
    4. Tania Murray Li, 1996. "Images of Community: Discourse and Strategy in Property Relations," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 27(3), pages 501-527, July.
    5. Kay, C., 2005. "Perspectives on rural poverty and development strategies in Latin America," ISS Working Papers - General Series 19179, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    6. Saturnino M. Borras, 2001. "State–Society Relations in Land Reform Implementation in the Philippines," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 545-575, June.
    7. Fox, Jonathan A, 1994. "The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt4n4746hk, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    8. Richard Gauld, 2000. "Maintaining Centralized Control in Community‐based Forestry: Policy Construction in the Philippines," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 229-254, January.
    9. Broad, Robin, 1994. "The poor and the environment: Friends or foes?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 811-822, June.
    10. Jin Sato, 2000. "People in Between: Conversion and Conservation of Forest Lands in Thailand," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 155-177, January.
    11. Marcus Colchester, 1994. "Sustaining the Forests: The Community‐based Approach in South and South‐East Asia," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 25(1), pages 69-100, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johnson, Craig & Forsyth, Timothy, 2002. "In the Eyes of the State: Negotiating a "Rights-Based Approach" to Forest Conservation in Thailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 1591-1605, September.
    2. Li, Tania Murray, 2002. "Engaging Simplifications: Community-Based Resource Management, Market Processes and State Agendas in Upland Southeast Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 265-283, February.
    3. Sikor, Thomas & Müller, Daniel, 2009. "The Limits of State-Led Land Reform: An Introduction," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1307-1316, August.
    4. Ojha, Hemant R. & Ford, Rebecca & Keenan, Rodney J. & Race, Digby & Carias Vega, Dora & Baral, Himlal & Sapkota, Prativa, 2016. "Delocalizing Communities: Changing Forms of Community Engagement in Natural Resources Governance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 274-290.
    5. Krul, Kees & Ho, Peter & Yang, Xiuyun, 2020. "Incentivizing household forest management in China's forest reform: Limitations to rights-based approaches in Southwest China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    6. Dressler, Wolfram & Roth, Robin, 2011. "The Good, the Bad, and the Contradictory: Neoliberal Conservation Governance in Rural Southeast Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 851-862, May.
    7. Sikor, Thomas & Nguyen, Tan Quang, 2007. "Why May Forest Devolution Not Benefit the Rural Poor? Forest Entitlements in Vietnam's Central Highlands," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 2010-2025, November.
    8. Punjabi, Bharat & Johnson, Craig A., 2019. "The politics of rural–urban water conflict in India: Untapping the power of institutional reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 182-192.
    9. Van Hecken, Gert & Bastiaensen, Johan & Windey, Catherine, 2015. "Towards a power-sensitive and socially-informed analysis of payments for ecosystem services (PES): Addressing the gaps in the current debate," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 117-125.
    10. Sikor, Thomas, 2006. "Analyzing community-based forestry: Local, political and agrarian perspectives," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 339-349, June.
    11. Cochran, Jaquelin & Ray, Isha, 2009. "Equity Reexamined: A Study of Community-Based Rainwater Harvesting in Rajasthan, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 435-444, February.
    12. Theresa Selfa & Joanna Endter-Wada, 2008. "The Politics of Community-Based Conservation in Natural Resource Management: A Focus for International Comparative Analysis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(4), pages 948-965, April.
    13. Yeboah-Assiamah, Emmanuel & Muller, Kobus & Domfeh, Kwame Ameyaw, 2017. "Institutional assessment in natural resource governance: A conceptual overview," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-12.
    14. Abinash Bhattachan & Matthew D. Jurjonas & Priscilla R. Morris & Paul J. Taillie & Lindsey S. Smart & Ryan E. Emanuel & Erin L. Seekamp, 2019. "Linking residential saltwater intrusion risk perceptions to physical exposure of climate change impacts in rural coastal communities of North Carolina," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 97(3), pages 1277-1295, July.
    15. Jha, Raghbendra & Murthy, K. V. Bhanu, 2003. "An inverse global environmental Kuznets curve," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 352-368, June.
    16. Patrick Bottazzi & David Crespo & Harry Soria & Hy Dao & Marcelo Serrudo & Jean Paul Benavides & Stefan Schwarzer & Stephan Rist, 2014. "Carbon Sequestration in Community Forests: Trade-offs, Multiple Outcomes and Institutional Diversity in the Bolivian Amazon," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(1), pages 105-131, January.
    17. Colleta Gandidzanwa & Aart Jan Verschoor & Thabo Sacolo, 2021. "Evaluating Factors Affecting Performance of Land Reform Beneficiaries in South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-15, August.
    18. Lenyeletse V. Basupi & Claire H. Quinn & Andrew J. Dougill, 2017. "Pastoralism and Land Tenure Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicting Policies and Priorities in Ngamiland, Botswana," Land, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-17, December.
    19. Daniel Ayalew Ali & Stefan Dercon & Madhur Gautam, 2011. "Property rights in a very poor country: tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 42(1), pages 75-86, January.
    20. Forsyth, Tim, 2007. "Are Environmental Social Movements Socially Exclusive? An Historical Study from Thailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2110-2130, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:prodev:v:6:y:2006:i:2:p:123-145. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.