Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Law
Stategraft, Bernadette Atuahene, Timothy Hodge
Stategraft, Bernadette Atuahene, Timothy Hodge
All Faculty Scholarship
Although sometimes difficult to detect, governmental power abuses can have detrimental impacts. Property tax assessments provide an effective lens to examine this phenomenon because, given the complexity of calculating property tax assessments, it is difficult for citizens to know when local government has exceeded its legitimate taxing authority and crossed into the realm of illegal extraction. Michigan is an ideal case study because it protects property owners by making assessment-related power abuses more visible through a unique state constitutional provision: property tax assessments cannot exceed 50 percent of a property’s market value. Abuses have persisted nevertheless. Between 2011 and 2015, …
The Dark Side Of Town: The Social Capital Revolution In Residential Property, Stephanie M. Stern
The Dark Side Of Town: The Social Capital Revolution In Residential Property, Stephanie M. Stern
All Faculty Scholarship
Social capital has pervaded property law, with scholars and policymakers advocating laws and property arrangements to promote social capital and relying on social capital to devolve property governance from legal institutions to resident groups. This Article challenges the prevailing view of social capital’s salutary effects with a more skeptical account that examines the dark side of residential social capital — its capacity to effectuate local factions and promote restraints and inegalitarianism that close off property. I introduce a set of claims about social capital’s dark side in residential property and explore these points through the examples of local racial purging, …
Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene
Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene
All Faculty Scholarship
The conception of property that a transitional state adopts is critically important because it affects the state’s ability to transform society. The classical conception of real property gives property rights a certain sanctity that allows owners to have near absolute control of their property. But, the sanctity given to property rights has made land reform difficult and thus can serve as a sanctuary for enduring inequality. This is particularly true in countries like South Africa and Namibia where—due to pervasive past property theft— land reform is essential because there are competing legitimate claims to land. Oddly, the classical conception is …
Property And Transitional Justice, Bernadette Atuahene
Property And Transitional Justice, Bernadette Atuahene
All Faculty Scholarship
Transitional justice is the study of those mechanisms employed by communities, states and the international community to deal with a legacy of systematic human rights abuses and authoritarianism in order to promote social reconstruction. There is a well developed transitional justice literature on how states can deal with past violations of civil and political rights, which discusses the value of truth commissions, and international and domestic prosecutions. The transitional justice literature on how to deal with past violations of property rights, however, is significantly less developed. The goal of this essay is to begin an important conversation about how transitional …
Things Fall Apart: The Illegitimacy Of Property Rights In The Context Of Past Theft, Bernadette Atuahene
Things Fall Apart: The Illegitimacy Of Property Rights In The Context Of Past Theft, Bernadette Atuahene
All Faculty Scholarship
In many states, past property theft is a volatile political issue that threatens to destabilize nascent democracies. How does a state avoid instability when past property theft causes a significant number of people to believe that the property distribution is illegitimate? To explore this question, I first define legitimacy relying on an empirical understanding of the concept. Second, I establish the relationship between inequality, illegitimate property distribution, and instability. Third, I describe the three ways a state can achieve stability when faced with an illegitimate property distribution: by using its coercive powers, by attempting to change people’s beliefs about the …
Land Titling: A Mode Of Privatization With The Potential To Deepen Democracy, Bernadette Atuahene
Land Titling: A Mode Of Privatization With The Potential To Deepen Democracy, Bernadette Atuahene
All Faculty Scholarship
Land titling is a form of privatization in that public assets are transferred to private families and individuals. This is unlike other forms of privatization, however, because there is a systematic diffusion of economic and decision making power down to indigent populations rather than out of the country or up to its local elites. In light of this uniqueness, the question I will grapple with in this Article is, can property ownership, achieved through land titling programs, bolster democracy? First, using Peru as an example, I explain the context that necessitated the creation of land titling and the process by …