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Abstract:
We examine land reform policies and their implications for violent conflict over land and resource use in the Brazilian Amazon. We identify the protagonists (land owners and squatters), derive their incentives to use violence, and show the role of legal inconsistencies as a basis for conflict. Although civil law guarantees title for land owners, the Brazilian Constitution adds a beneficial use criterion as a condition for title enforcement. This provision is part of a land reform or redistribution effort and it provides authorization for transfers to squatters. We describe the government agency involved in land reform, INCRA, and show that its intervention critically affects the actions of both squatters and land owners. Further, we point out the resource use effects of land reform policies and associated insecure property rights to land.

Abstract:
In this paper we examine how an interest group with limited resources (votes and campaign contributions) nevertheless effectively influenced political policy through the control of information to general voters. Voters in turn lobbied politicians to take actions desired by the interest group. Our focus is on the Landless Peasants Movement (Movimento Sem-Terra) or MST and its success in invigorating land reform in Brazil. Although we direct attention to the MST, our analysis can be generalized to interest group behavior in other settings.

Landless Peasant Movement, MST, Interest groups, multiprincipal, multitask, land reform

Abstract:
The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 gave relatively strong powers to the President. We model and test Executive-Legislative relations in Brazil and demonstrate that Presidents have used pork as a political currency to exchange for votes on policy reforms. In particular Presidents Cardoso and Lula have used pork to exchange for amendments to the Constitution. Without policy reforms Brazil would have had greater difficulty meeting their debt obligations. The logic for the exchange of pork for policy reform is that Presidents typically have greater electoral incentives than members of Congress to care about economic growth, economic opportunity, income equality and price stabilization. Members of Congress generally care more about redistributing gains to their constituents. Given the differences in preferences and the relative powers of each, the Legislative and Executive benefit by exploiting the gains from trade.

Abstract:
The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 gave relatively strong powers to the President. We model and test Executive-Legislative relations in Brazil and demonstrate that Presidents have used pork as a political currency to exchange for votes on policy reforms. In particular Presidents Cardoso and Lula have used pork to exchange for amendments to the Constitution. Without policy reforms Brazil would have had greater difficulty meeting their debt obligations. The logic for the exchange of pork for policy reform is that Presidents typically have greater electoral incentives than members of Congress to care about economic growth, economic opportunity, income equality and price stabilization. Members of Congress generally care more about redistributing gains to their constituents. Given the differences in preferences and the relative powers of each, the Legislative and Executive benefit by exploiting the gains from trade.

Economic models of political processes, executive, legislatures, gains to trade

Abstract:
We present a conceptual framework to better understand the interaction between settlement and the emergence of de facto property rights on frontiers prior to governments establishing and enforcing de jure property rights. In this framework, potential rents associated with more exclusivity drives “demand” for commons arrangements but demand is not a sufficient explanation; norms and politics matter. At some point enhanced scarcity will drive demand for more exclusivity beyond which can be sustained with commons arrangements. Claimants will therefore petition government for de jure property rights to their claims – formal titles. Land conflict will be minimal when governments supply property rights to first possessors. But, governments may not allocate de jure rights to these claimants because they face differing political constituencies. Moreover, governments may assign de jure rights but be unwilling to enforce the right. This generates potential or actual conflict over land depending on the violence potentials of de facto and de jure claimants. We examine land settlement and conflict on the frontiers of Australia, the U.S. and Brazil. We are interested in examining the emergence, sustainability, and collapse of commons arrangements in specific historical contexts. Our analysis indicates the emergence of de facto property rights arrangements will be relatively peaceful where claimants have reasons to organize collectively (Australia and the U.S.). The settlement process will be more prone to conflict when fewer collective activities are required. Consequently, claimants resort to periodic violent self-enforcement or third party enforcement (Brazil). In all three cases the movement from de facto to de jure property rights led to potential or actual conflict because of insufficient government enforcement.

Property Rights, Commons, Frontiers

Abstract:
We present a conceptual framework to better understand the interaction between settlement and the emergence of de facto property rights on frontiers prior to governments establishing and enforcing de jure property rights. In this framework, potential rents associated with more exclusivity drives “demand� for commons arrangements but demand is not a sufficient explanation; norms and politics matter. At some point enhanced scarcity will drive demand for more exclusivity beyond which can be sustained with commons arrangements. Claimants will therefore petition government for de jure property rights to their claims – formal titles. Land conflict will be minimal when governments supply property rights to first possessors. But, governments may not allocate de jure rights to these claimants because they face differing political constituencies. Moreover, governments may assign de jure rights but be unwilling to enforce the right. This generates potential or actual conflict over land depending on the violence potentials of de facto and de jure claimants. We examine land settlement and conflict on the frontiers of Australia, the U.S. and Brazil. We are interested in examining the emergence, sustainability, and collapse of commons arrangements in specific historical contexts. Our analysis indicates the emergence of de facto property rights arrangements will be relatively peaceful where claimants have reasons to organize collectively (Australia and the U.S.). The settlement process will be more prone to conflict when fewer collective activities are required. Consequently, claimants resort to periodic violent self-enforcement or third party enforcement (Brazil). In all three cases the movement from de facto to de jure property rights led to potential or actual conflict because of insufficient government enforcement.

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Abstract:
The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 gave relatively strong powers to the president. We model and test executive-legislative relations in Brazil and demonstrate that presidents have used pork as a political currency to exchange for votes on policy reforms. In particular Presidents Cardoso and Lula have used pork to exchange for amendments to the Constitution. Without policy reforms Brazil would have had greater difficulty meeting its debt obligations. The logic for the exchange of pork for policy reform is that presidents typically have greater electoral incentives than members of Congress to care about economic growth, economic opportunity, income equality, and price stabilization. Members of Congress generally care more about redistributing gains to their constituents. Given the differences in preferences and the relative powers of each, the legislative and executive branches benefit by exploiting the gains from trade.

Abstract:
In this paper we examine land reform policies and their implications for violent conflict over land and resource use in the Brazilian Amazon. We identify the protagonists (land owners and squatters), derive their incentives to use violence, and show the role of legal inconsistencies as a basis for conflict. Although civil law guarantees title for land owners, the Brazilian Constitution adds a beneficial use criterion as a condition for title enforcement. This provision is part of a land reform or redistribution effort and it provides authorization for transfers to squatters. We describe the government agency involved in land reform, INCRA, and show that its intervention critically affects the actions of both squatters and land owners. Further, we point out the resource use effects of land reform policies and associated insecure property rights to land. Forested lands on large farms do not meet the constitutional beneficial use criterion and hence, are vulnerable to invasion by squatters and redistribution by INCRA. In the contest for control, land owners and squatters have incentives to deforest more rapidly and extensively prior to a conflict than agricultural production alone would warrant in order to demonstrate their respective land use. In analyzing the determinants of violent conflict, an analytical framework is provided to generate hypotheses for testing. Using data from the Brazilian census and the Pastoral Land Commission for the state of Para we examine the characteristics of regions where violent conflict predominates. Our empirical results indicate that a greater policy emphasis on land reform in Brazil through expropriation to reduce violent conflict, may have the unanticipated effect of increasing violent competition and wasteful resource use. The results of the paper are suggestive not only for Brazil, but for elsewhere in Latin America where there is tension between the goals of secure property rights and wealth redistribution.

Abstract:
In this paper we analyze the underlying determinants of rural land conflicts in Brazil involving squatters, landowners, the federal government, the courts and INCRA, the land reform agency. We present a model where squatters and landowners strategically choose to engage in violence to advance their aims. Landowners use violence as a means of increasing the likelihood of successful eviction of squatters, and squatters use violence to increase the probability that the farm will be expropriated in their favor as part of the government?s land reform program. We test the model?s predictions using state-level data for Brazil for 22 states from 1988 through 1995 that we have assembled. The tests reveal that the government?s land reform policy, which is based on expropriation and settlement projects, paradoxically may be encouraging both of the major antagonists to engage in more violence, rather than reducing conflicts. If true, the existing land reform policy should be reconsidered because it is in conflict with the government?s efforts to reduce violent land disputes.