This thesis presents three essays motivated by two interrelated questions. First, how does political contestation inform political elite’s preference for land institutions, specifically land tenure regimes and their attendant property rights? Second, how do political elites use land institutions for mobilization and political control? The first essay examines how political contestation between rival elites, Renamo and Frelimo, ruling elites, informed Renamo’s institutional preferences, specifically a preference for a strengthened customary regime. The second essay leverages the concept of territoriality to illustrate how Zanu-PF ruling elites in Zimbabwe implemented three strategies of political control to hinder the defection of rural supporters to rival political elites. I find that central to political control was the fast-track land reform, whose outcome was settlement schemes that enabled ruling elites to use property rights to establish authority, fix land beneficiaries in specific spatial zones, organize the beneficiaries as loyal constituencies, and ultimately subordinate beneficiaries to political control. The third essay embarks on an exploratory exercise highlighting the linkages between research on the legacies of war and rebel wartime governance and research on the political significance of land institutions. I show that the dynamics of post-war political contestation provide fodder and a unique setting for studying the institutional preferences of political elites and how contestation shapes institutions. Additionally, the essay illustrates how research anchored on these linkages can contribute insights for broader comparative work.