Economics
The Political Economy of Land Reform in Developing Democracies
Quick fact
Even in democratic nations, land reform is rarely purely economic; it often emerges only when electoral pressures or social movements threaten elites, as seen in South Korea and Taiwan, where reforms were tied to Cold War politics and landowner defeats.
Why this is interesting
Imagine a country where a few families own almost all the land, while millions of farmers work just to survive. What decides whether that land gets redistributed—democracy, or elite power?