ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that institutional and legal reforms must be placed in a wider context of, on the one hand, political development and change, and, on the other, socioeconomic development. Programmes of law reform and legal system reform have been instituted in China, Uganda, Vietnam and Venezuela, and reforms are in the process of being put together in Tanzania. Tanzania has an enviable record of stability and concern for the poor; it is also famous for its Ujamaa policies and its villagisation programme, designed to bring the benefits of health, education and minimal social welfare provisions to the rural peasants. In Botswana, for instance, urban land reform via law has taken the form of a careful, controlled engrafting of common law concepts and ideas on to customary land tenure and the use of authorities which again blend customary and Modern elective and appointed officers.
