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Land and Loyalty: Security and the Development of Property Rights in Thailand

Online ISBN:
9780801464089
Print ISBN:
9780801450815
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
Book

Land and Loyalty: Security and the Development of Property Rights in Thailand

Tomas Larsson
Tomas Larsson
Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge
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Published:
10 May 2012
Online ISBN:
9780801464089
Print ISBN:
9780801450815
Publisher:
Cornell University Press

Abstract

Domestic and international development strategies often focus on private ownership as a crucial anchor for long-term investment; the security of property rights provides a foundation for capitalist expansion. In recent years, Thailand's policies have been hailed as a prime example of how granting formal land rights to poor farmers in low-income countries can result in economic benefits. But the country provides a puzzle: Thailand faced major security threats from colonial powers in the nineteenth century and from communism in the twentieth century, yet only in the latter case did the government respond with pro-development tactics. This book argues that institutional underdevelopment may prove, under certain circumstances, a strategic advantage rather than a weakness, and that external threats play an important role in shaping the development of property regimes. Security concerns often guide economic policy. The domestic legacies, legal and socioeconomic, resulting from state responses to the outside world shape and limit the strategies available to politicians. The book situates the experiences of Thailand in comparative perspective by contrasting them with the trajectory of property rights in Japan, Burma, and the Philippines.

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