Global land grab: Toward a country typology for future land negotiations

Human creativity opens new ways for the fulfillment of needs. It becomes increasingly difficult to predict which resources will be hunted and which will become unattractive. Even so, the conquest of new lands remains a dominant hallmark of all societies, regardless of technological advancements or human rights recognition. Access to and use of natural resources often cause conflicts, especially due to competing interests. In this context, the design of coping strategies is a difficult task. The present study aims to advance the understanding of how the outcome of large land negotiations at the global level is influenced by country characteristics. Consequently, the paper explores the relationship between the number and size of land transactions (between 2000 and 2018) at a global level and the socialeconomic and environmental features of 84 countries. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed to understand the patterns of variation within the data describing country features. PCA resulted in four principal components used to define four types of countries: "Development", "Size", "Water resources", and "Agriculture". Results evidenced that the indicators for the "Development" country-type negatively predicted the number and size of failed deals and that the indicators for the "Size" country-type significantly influenced every contract type. Overall, this contribution reveals the cases in which the social-economic and environmental profile of the country can predict the type of contracts related to land grabbing and also their size and number. From a practical perspective, the results can serve as a knowledge framework that enhances negotiators' power in future land bargaining.