This article discusses the relationship between the political regime and changes in the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rural land property rights in Colombia from 2002 to 2010. The article evaluates the mechanisms through which governance arrays and property rights patterns interact in a country that has suffered chronic violence and deep inequality – especially in the countryside – in the last decades. Though some characteristics of the Colombian regime – working checks and balances, political competition – have been instrumental in preventing major disasters for victims and vulnerable sectors, they have also interacted permanently with forces related to coercive appropriation of land. The consequence of this ambiguous outcome is discussed.

* I present here the results of research supported by the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo.

Keywords: Property rights, Colombia, Land, Limited Government