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How are public policies negotiated and designed in aid-dependent countries? In Benin, a group of policy entrepreneurs used its position in a rural development project to test new strategies for securing customary land rights and succeeded in putting the issue of rural land tenure on the political agenda. A new rural land law passed in 2007 wrought a veritable legal revolution: breaking with the colonial legacy, it paved the way for state recognition of the land rights of rural dwellers. But this revolution is now jeopardized by a change in the underlying context of the land tenure debate owing to a new donor's de facto support for the traditional registration process. Far from being a cut-and-dried opposition between “the State” and “the donors”, the situation in Benin shows that the policymaking process results from struggles between different public policy networks, each of which involves government agents, experts, donors etc., and it makes the case for a socio-anthropology of policy design processes.
