USA Africa Dialogue Series - Education, Legislators and Legislatures in Africa

Popularly elected legislatures are the sine qua non of modern,
representative democracy. Yet almost everywhere – even in
the United States where Congress plays a very powerful role –
the influence of legislatures receded during the 20th century.

Legislatures have been especially weak in Africa, almost in
every country and almost always. Yet some African legislatures
are beginning to assert their independence as players in the
policy process by formulating independent policy preferences,
monitoring the executive, and responding to popular demands
(Barkan 2008). But why are some legislatures developing these
capacities while many others are not?

In a recent attempt to answer this question Joel Barkan and
his co-authors undertook a set of intensive case studies of six
African legislatures. They isolated the importance of a 'coalition
of change' that had emerged in some legislatures thus changing
the incentive structure facing individual legislators and sparking
a series of institutional reforms. This reform agenda usually
included improvements in terms of service, such as salaries
and financial support for constituency service, efforts to build
capacity in and improve the committee system, development of
the ability to conduct budget analysis and the professionalisation
of research and other support staff (Barkan 2009).

While these coalitions consist largely of 'opportunists' interested
mainly in increasing their own salaries, perks and careers, they
are driven by 'reformers' who are 'intent on transforming their
institution from a weak rubber stamp of the executive into a
modern autonomous legislature' (Barkan 2009:18). While the
study collected no data on individual member of parliament
(MP) characteristics, Barkan observed that these 'reformers'
seemed to be younger, recently elected legislators who also
possessed advanced levels of education and professional
training (Barkan 2009). These demographic traits, argues
Barkan, produce MPs with distinct ideas and values leading
them to combine a more cosmopolitan view of the surrounding
world with a genuine commitment to democratisation (Barkan
2008).

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