"This report presents a political-economic analysis of land governance at the regional level, focusing on the Mekong Region The primary emphasis is on Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV), but the paper also takes into account the regional role and land governance experiences of Thailand and China. The report is one in a series of reports on Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam that present country-level analyses of the poli- tical economy of land governance. The series is part of a research mapping and political-economic analysis conducted by the authors for the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). The initiative is driven by concerns about security of tenure of small- holder farmers, ethnic minorities and women, against a background of land grabbing in various guises (see www.mrlg.org)... In this case, the Mekong is broadly coterminous with mainland Southeast Asia. While it takes the river as its defining motif, the region is much wider than the Mekong River and its tributaries. Alternatively framed, the Greater Mekong Sub-region is comprised of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the two provinces of China that border Southeast Asia (Yunnan and Guangxi). The project-specific definition of the region behind this report includes the CLMV countries. Sometimes referred to as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) latecomers, the once-socialist economies seek to integrate and capitalise their economies. In the context of land-based investment with which the report is concerned, Thailand and China enter as important players ? providing a more complete picture of the region. 2 Political Economy of Land Governance in the Mekong Region A Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report defines ?land governance” succinctly as follows: ?Land governance concerns the rules, processes and structures through which decisions are made about access to land and its use, the manner in which the decisions are implemented and enforced, the way that competing interests in land are managed” (Palmer et al. 2009: 9).” Our working definition expands on the FAO definition as follows: ?Land governance consists of the means by which authority is wielded and collective action applied in order to achieve particular social and economic out- comes through land use, distribution, access and security. Land governance is concerned with processes, institutions, laws, practices and structures of power involving a diverse range of public and private actors.” Land governance is a scaled issue, involving broad level influences at the global, regional, national and local scales. This paper seeks to explain the main parameters of land governance at the regional scale, with a particular focus on the Mekong Region. Our project of conducting a regional political-economic analysis considers the questions: Why apply political economy to an analysis of land governance, and what does a regional scale analysis entail? In other words, what makes land govern- ance a political-economic issue, and what makes it a regional issue? LAND GOVERNANCE: A POLITICAL- ECONOMIC ISSUE Not all approaches to land governance place it in the realm of political economy per se. Land governance can be approached from a number of angles. In a uni- versal and normative sense ?good land governance” is sought through a range of global level assessment criteria (see, for example, The Land Governance Assessment Framework: Identifying and Monitoring Good Practice in the Land Sector, Deininger et al. 2011). The FAO has established a set of non-binding guidelines for ?responsible” governance of land tenure and other natural resources (FAO 2012). A number of development assistance initiatives funded by Australian, German, Finnish, Canadian, Swiss (and other) bilateral development agencies have sought to improve land governance in the Mekong Region by programmatic means (see www.landgov.donorplatform.org). Each of these frameworks has its own emphasis; some are more market-oriented and some are geared to a liberal rights-oriented approach of social inclusion. However, all work within broad ?good governance” criteria of transparency, rule of law, stakeholder inclusion and equitable market structures. While there is recognition of the need to adapt global concepts and criteria of ?good governance? to country circumstances, the political- economic embeddedness of land issues has often been overlooked. Only recently have some donors specifically sought to conduct political-economic analysis in recognition of program risks and failures attributed to insufficient account being taken of the context within which programs operate. For example, responding to the World Bank Inspection Panel that investigated the Land Management and Administration Project in Cambodia, Management of LMAP noted: ?With the benefit of hindsight, Management recognises that ... a more detailed analysis of the political economy context would likely have identified ... that... numerous actors had strong incentives not to proceed with a trans- parent and public interest based classification and registration of State land” (IBRD & IDA, 21 January, 2011, p. 15..."