How does political contestation inform political elites’ preference for land institutions? And how do political elites use land institutions for mobilisation and political control? These questions are at the heart of three essays that make up Kudzai Tamuka Moyo’s PhD thesis in International Relations/Political Science. In this interview, Dr Tamuka Moyo focusses on his first essay that shows how political contestation between rival elites in Mozambique – Renamo and Frelimo – informed Renamo’s preference for a strengthened customary regime.
How did you come to study the relationship between political contestation and land institutions in Mozambique?
Initially, I planned to write a thesis on how post-war governments build political legitimacy through land or tenure reforms and agricultural investment, using Mozambique and Rwanda as case studies. During this period, I managed to dive into the literature that debated the economic implications of different land tenure regimes in Africa and other regions. The debates focused on the advantages and disadvantages of incomplete land property rights (considered weak property rights), such as customary and communal or collective land property rights and use rights (anchored on state ownership of the land), and complete property rights (considered strong property rights) in the form of private or freehold property rights. Through this literature, I encountered debates on the political significance of land property rights and how political contestation shapes institutional outcomes, such as land property rights over rural land. I noticed that this literature focused on how political contestation informs ruling elites’ preferences for incomplete or weak property rights over rural land and how ruling elites use the rights to mobilise and control rural populations. However, the literature had little to say about rival or opposition elites’ preferences. Realising this gap in the literature and possessing some knowledge of land politics in Mozambique after the war in 1992 led me to explore this topic in my first essay.
Can you describe your research question and methodology?
The main question is how the political contestation between Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) – Mozambican National Resistance – and Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) – Mozambique Liberation Front – influenced Renamo’s institutional preferences, specifically a preference for a strengthened customary land tenure regime during the making the 1997 Land Law.
Regarding methodology, the essay utilises historical analysis by drawing from rich historical, anthropological and sociological sources. I complemented these sources with semi-structured interviews and email exchanges with experts on Mozambique. I conducted the first round of interviews and email exchanges in 2021 and the second round in 2022. The experts had a solid grasp of the post-war political dynamics and followed the land law-making process at the national and subnational levels. Additionally, I gathered information from the Mozamblique Political Process Bulletin, an archive of news reports since 1993, which followed the political situation and contestation between Renamo and Frelimo and how the contestation filtered into the land law-making process.
What are your major findings?
The first finding is that rival elites are interested in the structure of land institutions that govern rural land, mainly where rural areas are their political strongholds because rival elites can also use property institutions to control rural populations for effective political contestation. Second, Renamo’s case highlights that even though rival or opposition elites are weak compared to ruling elites, they have some bargaining power to lock in their political advantage and exact costs on ruling elites. Last, the essay arrives at a conclusion which, in line with those of scholars such as Catherine Boone, considers that land law-making processes are not only technical, but also very much politically charged processes with implications at the national level because property institutions are resources in the political arena.
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Kudzai Tamuka Moyo defended his PhD thesis in International Relations/Political Science on 15 June 2023. Associate Professor Sung Min Rho presided over the committee, which included Professor Ravinder Bhavnani, Thesis Director, and Professor Richard Snyder, Department of Political Science, Brown University, USA.
Citation of the PhD thesis:
Tamuka Moyo, Kudzai. “Essays on Political Contestation, Political Control and Land Institutions.” PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2023.
Access:
An abstract of the PhD thesis is available on this page of the Geneva Graduate Institute’s repository. As the thesis itself is embargoed until October 2026, interested readers can contact Dr Tamuka Moyo at kudzai.tamuka@graduateinstitute.ch for access.
Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.
Banner image by Viljami AarbakkeKalamies at fi.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.