1 The impact of agricultural investments on state capacity: A comparative analysis of Ethiopia and Ghana Tom Lavers and Festus Boamah Published in Geoforum 2016 72: 94-103 Abstract The first wave of research on the ‘global land grab’ largely focused on the international drivers of investment and impacts of individual projects in host countries. More recent studies have acknowledged the important roles played by both host states and societal organisations in these deals. However, there has been little attempt to analyse how processes of agricultural investment also transforms the state itself. The present paper builds on theories regarding the social roots of state power and the literature on the links between land and authority, to construct a framework that can be used to explore these linkages. The core argument of the paper is that in situations of overlapping authority between state and societal organisations—as is common in Africa—increased agricultural investment requires infrastructure development and can provoke changes in power relations between state and society that have important implications for state capacity. To illustrate this argument, the paper examines recent investment trends in two countries that have figured prominently in the ‘land grab’ literature but where land tenure regimes and state-society relations take markedly different forms—Ethiopia, where a ‘strong’ state has actively promoted agricultural investment as part of a developmental and state-building project that has enhanced its territorial control; and Ghana where chiefs have taken advantage of increased demand from investors in an attempt to (re-)assert their authority over land vis-à-vis the state and other societal organisations. Keywords: agricultural investments; state-society relations; land; Ethiopia; Ghana; Africa Introduction Much of the first wave of the ‘land grab’ literature focused on the drivers of increased demand for land, emphasising the role of transnational actors and processes (Zoomers 2010, McMichael 2012, Sassen 2013), or examined the local- level socioeconomic impacts of new projects. 1 Subsequent research has complemented this work by highlighting the important roles also played by state and societal organisations at national and sub-national levels in shaping patterns of investment and outcomes (AuthorA 2012a, 2012b, Dwyer 2013, Fairbairn 1 See, for example, recent special issues of the Journal of Peasant Studies.