Land Restitution and Conflict in Cameroon: The case of the Bakweri

Abstract

Land that was appropriated in the colonial period is only rarely returned to African claimants. Drawing largely on interviews from 2018, this article examines a process of surrendering parcels of state-managed plantation land to Bakweri communities in the South-West Region of Cameroon, which has been operating since 2003. The article not only analyses the national political effects of the scheme, but also engages with debates about interpretive frameworks by contrasting neopatrimonial and political settlements (PS) approaches. The article argues that the original intention of the land restitution scheme may have been to benefit some local communities, but it also reduced effective opposition to the national government by undermining Bakweri institutions and unity. It sustained established national political arrangements by generating significant rents, which are distributed among the government's supporters in exchange for loyalty. The article argues that this part of the argument would align with the neopatrimonial framing, but that PS address some of the criticisms levelled at neopatrimonialism particularly in relation to the explanations for and limits to clientelism.