Periodic Reporting for period 4 - DLEDA (Do Legislatures Enhance Democracy in Africa?)
Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2024-07-31
In the course of the Third Wave of democratization many former dictatorships reintroduced multi-party systems. While some countries democratized successfully, others have remained electoral autocracies. Research has begun to pay increasing attention to the role of institutions in these countries. Some authors argue that parties, elections, and legislatures actually stabilize autocracy, but others find positive effects on democracy at least in the long run. The role of legislatures in authoritarian Africa is still poorly understood, partly due to a lack of empirical evidence. The DLEDA project therefore seeks to explore what parliaments may contribute to democratization.
We are working with a comparative multi-case and mixed-methods design. The case studies are Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Tanzania, and Uganda. We structure our research interest into three main research questions:
1. Which policy decisions are taken in the national assembly, and in which areas does the opposition have a say in decision-making?
2. What interactions take place between the ruling party and the opposition in the national assembly?
3. Are legislatures in authoritarian demographically representative and to what extent do legislators act in the interest of their constituents?
We are working with a comparative multi-case and mixed-methods design. The case studies are Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Tanzania, and Uganda. We structure our research interest into three main research questions:
1. Which policy decisions are taken in the national assembly, and in which areas does the opposition have a say in decision-making?
2. What interactions take place between the ruling party and the opposition in the national assembly?
3. Are legislatures in authoritarian demographically representative and to what extent do legislators act in the interest of their constituents?
For question 1 we collected parliamentary debates for one year. We have the relevant documents from Uganda, Botswana, Benin, Tanzania, and Gabon. For Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire, the hansards for the relevant period are not yet published. The analyses show that debates on the floor are more meaningful in anglophone cases, whereas in francophone parliaments more work is done in the committees. We find that the opposition is more active in Botswana, which is the most democratic country in our sample. Contrary to the literature on rubberstamp parliaments, we find that especially in Uganda, many laws go through a process of amendment. In general, the level of professionalization is higher in anglophone countries. It does not co-vary with the level of democracy, but rather with institutional legacies. We also find that there is a variety of issues that can become controversial between government and opposition, but also within ruling parties. The quality of debate and the input of the opposition cannot be easily generalized, they are depending on formal rules, the composition of the national assembly, as well as relevant day-to-day decisions. The most important finding is that there is much greater variance between countries, parties, and individual MPs that cannot be simplified into "democratic" or "authoritarian" politics.
Biographies and Social Networks
Data for Question 2 and 3 is collected in full population surveys. The results on the biographical data of MPs show that African parliaments are very representative in terms of ethnic groups and religious groups. Women, youth, and the poor are underrepresented. Levels of gender representation are mostly determined by quota system, not by the level of democracy. Uganda and Tanzania are much more representative in this regard than democratic Botswana.
Social networks among MPs differ across countries, but not as much as we would have expected. In fact, there is a common network structure irrespective of different conditions like institutional variation, colonial legacies, party system, or levels of democracy. While all these variables account for certain country-specific details, the topography of the networks is similar at the first look: dense, integrated structures that show very little indication of exclusion or elite segregation. Political parties structure interactions much more than regional background or ethnic affiliation. Elite interactions are to a large degree cross-partisan and cross-ethnic. Moving away from the general picture, each country has its own model of elite integration that helps to explain political developments.
One of the most important findings is the high degree of social integration and elite reproduction. In each country, about 90% of the MPs have known at least one other MP before being elected to parliament. These contacts were formed in education, social spaces like clubs, churches, or neighbourhoods, but also by family or business relations. In each country, we find a core elite composed of people who share social similarities, have long careers, and are closely knit together in professional and social networks. These core elite circulate across different sectors like politics, economy, administration, security, as well as the traditional system. This suggests an African power elite.
Accountability: findings
Modern parliamentary democracy is a system of delegation: citizens delegate popular sovereignty to individual politicians and collective actors like political parties; ideally, these actors will then be held accountable by the electorate. Especially for African countries, the existence of clientelistic exchange is a dominant topic in the literature on parties and elections. Voters usually expect that representatives care for the material well-being of their communities. They also expect MPs to deliver individual goods like scholarships, jobs, or chop money, but also collective goods like hospitals, schools, or roads. Our findings confirm this. MPs also believe that voters expect development and private goods such as jobs or contracts. Only a minority of all MPs believe that voters want to be represented in parliament and visited regularly. Very few MPs think that voters want them to hold the executive accountable. We find almost no differences between the countries under comparison. This suggests that local processes in Africa are very similar across countries that are very different in regime type or colonial history. MPs are trapped between two different ideas of what it means to be a “good” representative. Staying in the capital city, doing parliamentary business, speaking on the floor, scrutinizing laws – the classical activities that are expected from them – are hardly visible to the voters in the countryside. Bridges, schools, hospitals, funeral costs, school fees – the clientelistic goods that MPs believe their constituents want – are more visible, but providing them is formally not the task of the MP but a matter of national development policies. As long as poverty levels remain high, voters will legitimately demand tangible benefits from politics so that electoral politics needs to be adapted to social realities. There are no significant differencs between less and more democratic countries.
Biographies and Social Networks
Data for Question 2 and 3 is collected in full population surveys. The results on the biographical data of MPs show that African parliaments are very representative in terms of ethnic groups and religious groups. Women, youth, and the poor are underrepresented. Levels of gender representation are mostly determined by quota system, not by the level of democracy. Uganda and Tanzania are much more representative in this regard than democratic Botswana.
Social networks among MPs differ across countries, but not as much as we would have expected. In fact, there is a common network structure irrespective of different conditions like institutional variation, colonial legacies, party system, or levels of democracy. While all these variables account for certain country-specific details, the topography of the networks is similar at the first look: dense, integrated structures that show very little indication of exclusion or elite segregation. Political parties structure interactions much more than regional background or ethnic affiliation. Elite interactions are to a large degree cross-partisan and cross-ethnic. Moving away from the general picture, each country has its own model of elite integration that helps to explain political developments.
One of the most important findings is the high degree of social integration and elite reproduction. In each country, about 90% of the MPs have known at least one other MP before being elected to parliament. These contacts were formed in education, social spaces like clubs, churches, or neighbourhoods, but also by family or business relations. In each country, we find a core elite composed of people who share social similarities, have long careers, and are closely knit together in professional and social networks. These core elite circulate across different sectors like politics, economy, administration, security, as well as the traditional system. This suggests an African power elite.
Accountability: findings
Modern parliamentary democracy is a system of delegation: citizens delegate popular sovereignty to individual politicians and collective actors like political parties; ideally, these actors will then be held accountable by the electorate. Especially for African countries, the existence of clientelistic exchange is a dominant topic in the literature on parties and elections. Voters usually expect that representatives care for the material well-being of their communities. They also expect MPs to deliver individual goods like scholarships, jobs, or chop money, but also collective goods like hospitals, schools, or roads. Our findings confirm this. MPs also believe that voters expect development and private goods such as jobs or contracts. Only a minority of all MPs believe that voters want to be represented in parliament and visited regularly. Very few MPs think that voters want them to hold the executive accountable. We find almost no differences between the countries under comparison. This suggests that local processes in Africa are very similar across countries that are very different in regime type or colonial history. MPs are trapped between two different ideas of what it means to be a “good” representative. Staying in the capital city, doing parliamentary business, speaking on the floor, scrutinizing laws – the classical activities that are expected from them – are hardly visible to the voters in the countryside. Bridges, schools, hospitals, funeral costs, school fees – the clientelistic goods that MPs believe their constituents want – are more visible, but providing them is formally not the task of the MP but a matter of national development policies. As long as poverty levels remain high, voters will legitimately demand tangible benefits from politics so that electoral politics needs to be adapted to social realities. There are no significant differencs between less and more democratic countries.
On a more theoretical level, we are comparing elite configurations and institutional variation across countries. Institutions vary much more than expected. The literature on African parliaments has largely glossed over the very fine-grained differences in terms of specific institutional provisions. These play a huge role in explaining the country-level differences.
Parliaments in Africa are not just rubberstamps. Their contribution to democracy however is highly contingent on other factors. The popular idea that authoritarian legislatures are a distinct type of legislatures that differ in composition, activity, or functionality from their democratic counterparts, finds little support in our cases.
Parliaments in Africa are not just rubberstamps. Their contribution to democracy however is highly contingent on other factors. The popular idea that authoritarian legislatures are a distinct type of legislatures that differ in composition, activity, or functionality from their democratic counterparts, finds little support in our cases.