Public Authority, Property, and Citizenship: What We Talk about When We Talk about Land

An institutional perspective should consider the fundamental dynamics among public authority, property, and citizenship. Yet treating any of these elements in isolation or as finished product gets in the way of understanding them. They come about through each other; one always invokes the others, and they are always in the making. Hence, we need to know not just what they are, but also how they come about in conjunction. This is especially relevant in agrarian societies where the political authority and the status of individuals and groups are mediated by land. Both the political powers to rule and the access to livelihoods go through land control. Thus, the institutional relations between authority, property, and citizenship—in a broad sense and at all scales—are central to societal dynamics.