E

In this chapter, the keyword explored is expropriation. During the first three quarters of the twentieth century, land politics was most commonly framed in the context redistributive land reform, and its most fundamental element was expropriation. This is whether the expropriated owners of the land are compensated or not (expropriation with compensation and expropriation without compensation). This concept was among the very first policy terms that became a taboo in neoliberal development policy narrative and practice beginning in the 1980s. It was replaced by the principle of ‘voluntary selling’ in the context of land markets and market-based land reform that are so dominant today.