1. Botswana possessed precolonial tribal institutions that encouraged broad-based participation and placed constraints on political elites. Commoners were allowed to make suggestions and criticize chiefs.
2. British colonialization had a limited effect on these precolonial institutions because of the peripheral nature of Botswana to the British Empire.
3. Upon independence, the most important rural interests, chiefs and cattle owners, were politically powerful, and it was in their economic interests to enforce property rights.
4. The revenues from diamonds generated enough rents for the main political actors, increasing the opportunity cost of and thereby discouraging further rent seeking.
5. Political leaders made sensible decisions. These included turning over diamond mining rights from tribal (Bangwato) to national control (this transition was initiated in a statesmanlike way by the postindependence leader Seretse Khama, who was himself a member of the Bangwato tribe). Reduction of the powers of the tribal chiefs was another such decision. Each reduced the chances of internecine conflicts that have plagued so many other African countries. It might be said that in Botswana, although elites enjoyed a good share of the diamond eggs, they did not kill the goose that laid them, and they faced real constraints on their ability to take a larger share.