9601136 Firman This research examines the transformation of property rights to land in Ghana, the Cote d'Ivoire and cameroon during the period of colonial rule, when Africa was integrated into the world economy. The project aims to achieve three theoretical goals. First, it explains the origins of insecure land tenure in Africa. Second, it describes the impact of British and French colonial institutions on the transformation of property rights - and thus begins to explain variation in the pattern of political and economic change witnessed across Africa. Third, the project improves our theoretical understanding of the political process by which property rights institutions change, and the conditions under which those rights are made more secure. The researcher uses a most similar systems research design. She examines the transformation of property rights among the Akan who straddled the Ghanaian-Ivoirian border; and among the Bamileke, who reside in the former British and French portions of Cameroon. By selecting border groups, the researcher holds constant variables such as ecological climate or proximity to urban center and isolates the effect of a single independent variable: colonial institutions. By choosing one hierarchically organized society (the Akan), and one decentralized society (the Bamileke), the investigator examines the power of rival hypotheses, which link the difference in the transformation of land tenure to the indigenous social structure. The investigator relies on qualitative data, specifically archival data and oral interviews. These data allow determination of the strategies landowners used to acquire land and defend that land from other claimants. ***
