Eliminating market distortions, perpetuating rural inequality: an evaluation of market-assisted land reform in Guatemala

Abstract The signing of the Guatemalan Peace Accords in 1996 sought to end nearly four decades of civil war and to rectify what many have identified as the root cause of the violent conflict: the country's extremely unequal distribution of land. To achieve this aim, the agreement embraces the strategy of market-assisted land reform. The agrarian strategy has done little to level the country's agrarian structure, however, as the quantity of land that has been transferred is minimal and often of poor quality. Moreover, rather than alleviating poverty, the market-led strategy has indebted its intended beneficiaries. In part, the failure of the programme results from the limited political and financial support that it receives from policy makers. But its shortcomings are also rooted in the inherently flawed model of market-led agrarian reform, a strategy that disembeds land from its political and cultural contexts and envisions it as nothing more than a transferable commodity. To placate demands for land, Guatemalan officials have implemented a land rental programme that does little to redress the deep economic inequalities that plague Guatemala and underpin its political instability. A more comprehensive land reform is justified.