Co‐Opting the Elders: The Political Economy of State Incorporation in Africa

Abstract

The new institutional economics provides the basis for a theory of institutional change that helps to explain economic and political change among the East African pastoral Orma. A restudy of the Orma in 1987, following a six‐year absence, revealed many changes in property rights over common grazing. The need for change in property rights led the elders to yield considerable authority to the state in return for enforcement of new property rights. The lessons from this case study of state incorporation relate also to the issue of state formation, and more generally to the process of change in institutions such as marriage, lineage, clan, gerontocracy, and patron‐client relations.