IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v56y2019i12p2408-2425.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legal geographies of neoliberalism: Market-oriented tenure reforms and the construction of an ‘informal’ urban class in post-socialist Phnom Penh

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin Cyrus Roger Flower

Abstract

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cambodia’s transition from socialist to market-oriented tenure became associated with severe tenure insecurity for those living in areas of self-built housing in the capital, Phnom Penh. This paper explores the legal geographies of this tenure insecurity by assessing how low-income urban dwellers interacted with a rapidly shifting legal system. Through analysis of historical legal documents, survey data and archived land disputes, it is found that market-oriented tenure reforms were exclusionary by design, and directly resulted in an ‘informal’ tenure system that legally rendered self-built dwellings in a constant state of provisionality. The findings provide a critique of orthodox accounts of tenure reform in post-socialist cities, which propose the deepening of market reforms to increase security. Instead, the paper builds on critical legal geographies of neoliberalism by suggesting that insecurity in Phnom Penh was perpetuated by laws, rather than their absence or the circumventing of laws. The analysis also contributes to understandings of informal tenure by presenting a post-socialist, state-constructed and exclusionary system of informality.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Cyrus Roger Flower, 2019. "Legal geographies of neoliberalism: Market-oriented tenure reforms and the construction of an ‘informal’ urban class in post-socialist Phnom Penh," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(12), pages 2408-2425, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:12:p:2408-2425
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098018794640
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098018794640
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098018794640?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. Erin Collins, 2016. "Postsocialist informality: The making of owners, squatters and state rule in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (1989–1993)," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(12), pages 2367-2382, December.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    3. Diana Hunt, 2004. "Unintended Consequences of Land Rights Reform: The Case of the 1998 Uganda Land Act," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 22(2), pages 173-191, March.
    4. Dani Rodrik, 2006. "Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank's Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 973-987, December.
    5. Ann Varley, 2002. "Private or public: debating the meaning of tenure legalization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 449-461, September.
    6. Engvall, Anders & Kokko, Ari, 2007. "Poverty And Land Policy In Cambodia," EIJS Working Paper Series 233, Stockholm School of Economics, The European Institute of Japanese Studies.
    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. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2018. "Inefficient Growth," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 9(2).
    2. Thomas Vendryes, 2014. "Peasants Against Private Property Rights: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 971-995, December.
    3. Lant Pritchett & Erik Werker, 2012. "Developing the guts of a GUT (Grand Unified Theory): elite commitment and inclusive growth," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-016-12, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    4. Varley, Ann, 2007. "Gender and Property Formalization: Conventional and Alternative Approaches," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1739-1753, October.
    5. Davis, Lewis S. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2016. "Culture and the regulation of entry," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 1055-1083.
    6. Antoni Estevadeordal & Alan M. Taylor, 2013. "Is the Washington Consensus Dead? Growth, Openness, and the Great Liberalization, 1970s–2000s," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1669-1690, December.
    7. Natkhov, T. & Polishchuk, L., 2017. "Political Economy of Institutions and Development: The Importance of Being Inclusive. Reflection on "Why Nations Fail" by D. Acemoglu and J. Robinson. Part I. Institutions and Economic Devel," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 12-38.
    8. Mitra, Pradeep & Muravyev, Alexander & Schaffer, Mark E., 2009. "Convergence in institutions and market outcomes: cross-country and time-series evidence from the business environment and enterprise performance surveys in transition economies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4819, The World Bank.
    9. Thomas Barnebeck Andersen & Peter Sandholt Jensen, 2014. "Is Africa's Recent Growth Sustainable?," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 207-223, June.
    10. Eduardo Wiesner, 2008. "The Political Economy of Macroeconomic Policy Reform in Latin America," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12913.
    11. Christoph Doerffel & Peter Draper & Andreas Freytag & Sebastian Schuhmann, 2021. "Drivers of Inclusive Development: An Empirical Investigation," Jena Economics Research Papers 2021-015, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    12. Artem Kochnev, 2021. "Marching to Good Laws: The Impact of War, Politics, and International Credit on Reforms in Ukraine," wiiw Working Papers 192, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    13. Justin Yifu Lin & Xiaobing Wang, 2019. "The Facilitating State and Economic Development: The Role of the State in New Structural Economics," Book, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, edition 1, volume 1, number y:2019:v:1:ch:6:p:123-141 edited by Justin Yifu Lin & Alojzy Z. Nowak, June.
    14. Szirmai, Adam, 2011. "Angus Maddison and Development Economics," MERIT Working Papers 2011-035, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    15. Estelle Koussoubé & Augustin Loada & Gustave Nebié & Marc Raffinot, 2014. "Political Economy of growth and poverty in Burkina Faso: Power, Institutions and Rents," Working Papers DT/2014/01, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    16. Yi Wen, 2015. "The Making of an Economic Superpower―Unlocking China’s Secret of Rapid Industrialization," Working Papers 2015-6, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    17. Flower, Benjamin C.R. & Ganepola, Piyal & Popuri, Srinivasa & Turkstra, Jan, 2023. "Securing tenure for conflict-affected populations: A case study of land titling and fit-for-purpose land administration in post-conflict Sri Lanka," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    18. Birdsall, Nancy & de la Torre, Augusto & Caicedo, Felipe Valencia, 2010. "The Washington consensus : assessing a damaged brand," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5316, The World Bank.
    19. Eduardo Wiesner, 2011. "Colombia: la percepción de justicia distributiva y la demanda política por estabilidad macroeconómica," Documentos CEDE 8739, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    20. Keun Lee and John Mathews, 2013. "Science, technology and innovation for sustainable development," CDP Background Papers 016, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.

    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:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:12:p:2408-2425. 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: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    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.