Land Grabbing, the State and Chiefs: The Politics of Extending Commercial Agriculture in Ghana

Since 2006, Ghana has experienced a wave of large-scale land acquisitions
(LSLAs) for agricultural purposes. Although these acquisitions are enabled
by favourable agricultural and investment policies, investors nevertheless
generally negotiate directly with traditional authorities, often bypassing state
authorities in the acquisition process. The strength of customary authorities
is often attributed to the weakness of the state. Considering historical political
precedents, this article argues that chiefs in fact increasingly derive their
power and legitimacy from state and donor policy. Chiefs play a crucial role
in translating the (inter)national investment and development logic into local
customary settings which are characterized by complex and overlapping use
rights to land and natural resources. Using data from an LSLA in Ghana’s
Volta Region, this study shows how chiefs continuously redefine and adapt
the customary land tenure system and its intricate governance logic to the
globalized neoliberal policy setting, readily switching between different institutional
settings (institution shopping) to legitimize their actions. Those
whose rights under customary tenure are least secure are most likely to lose
out in the process of institutional change from common to private property,
while those with close connections to the customary elite are most likely to
benefit from LSLAs.