Since Africa's third wave of democratisation in the 1990s, scholars have repeatedly stressed the importance of a strong legislature for democratic consolidation. Research on African parliaments has, however, remained limited, and Ken Ochieng’ Opalo's Legislative Development in Africa: politics and postcolonial legacies is a major contribution on an under-studied topic. The book presents a novel theory of legislative institutional development over time, covering both the post-colonial autocratic period and the return to multiparty competition. For its empirical demonstration, it adopts a rigorous mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative historical comparison with quantitative analysis of variation in legislative strength.
Opalo addresses two questions: what explains variation in the strength of autocratic legislatures, and under what conditions do multiparty transitions result in strengthening legislative institutions? He affirms that the answer to the first question is directly tied to the second; as in, ‘strong autocratic legislatures beget strong democratic legislatures’ (27). The origin of strong versus weak parliaments, according to this argument, is rooted in the different strategic decisions made by post-colonial autocrats seeking to stabilise their rule. Unlike European parliaments, which strengthened gradually due to ongoing bargaining between a monarch and powerful elites, African legislatures were a colonial inheritance. They had to ‘play catch-up’ in a context where individual legislators lacked political autonomy and where the chief executive controlled the resources (material and political) parliaments needed to gain strength. But the legislature still mattered in that chief executives needed a mechanism to cultivate loyal elites, and parliament could play that role. As such, the choice for many chief executives was whether to elevate the legislature as the favoured channel of elite coordination or whether to use an alternative channel, namely the ruling party.
What then determined a chief executive's choice? Somewhat paradoxically, Opalo argues that stronger presidents favoured stronger parliaments. This is because allowing elite coordination through the legislature raised the risk of an organised elite challenge, and stronger autocrats were more confident in their ability to manage this challenge. Opalo further specifies that no African autocrat granted the legislature ‘ends independence’, namely, the ability to change policy in ways that contradicted executive preferences. But stronger autocrats did allow the legislature ‘means independence’, the ability of legislators to define ‘intra-legislative bargaining arrangements through which to achieve statutory outcomes prescribed by chief executives’. This ‘means independence’ then gave legislators an incentive to invest in legislative institutional development (the development of a stronger committee system, more control over the parliamentary budget, and the like). Where these conditions prevailed, the legislature not only gained greater independence under autocratic rule but, following a democratic transition, could also institutionalise faster and gain greater ‘ends independence’.
Opalo demonstrates this argument through a comparison of the Kenyan and Zambian cases. He shows how the late colonial politics in the two countries led their founding presidents, Jomo Kenyatta and Kenneth Kaunda respectively, to make contrasting choices about the institutional channels through which to consolidate their rule. Kenyatta chose to rule through a strong provincial administration, and knowing he could use this administrative apparatus to settle elite conflicts, he was willing to allow for a stronger parliament to emerge. Kaunda, by contrast, did not have control over a strong administration and instead relied on the ruling party to monitor elite politics. Opalo emphasises the ‘inherent weakness’ of this party-based control (167), which exposed Kaunda to more intra-party factional conflict and ‘predisposed him to deny the legislature means independence’ (139).
Opalo develops a careful analytical narrative to compare the historical trajectories of the Kenyan and Zambian parliaments. He complements this with original quantitative data comparing legislative development over a 50-year period. These data cover legislative activity and outputs, like the share of executive-initiated bills passed, as well as legislative institutional characteristics, like whether the legislature has control over its own budget.
As noted at the start, this book addresses an important gap in the Africanist literature with novel theory and an impressive battery of empirical data. It also engages directly with the wider comparative politics literature, speaking both to work on authoritarian institutions and on democratic consolidation. Perhaps most intriguing is the argument that ‘politically secure autocrats, who are likely to preside over durable regimes anyway, are more likely to govern through institutions’ (70–1). This analysis contrasts with the authoritarian institutions literature, which presents strong political institutions themselves as responsible for securing regime durability. It is also at variance with an Africanist literature, which maintains that ‘Big Men’ presidents can do without formal institutions altogether, preferring more informal patronage networks.
But Opalo's conclusions about strong autocrats also highlight a tension in the book. After reading, questions linger about what determines autocratic strength. The emphasis on the superiority of administrative-based over party-based autocratic control is not entirely convincing. Is party-based control always ‘inherently weaker’, as argued, or might some parties serve as a more effective vehicle for top-down autocratic rule? And are administrative-based and party-based modes of autocratic control mutually exclusive or, instead, complementary? For instance, in nearby Tanzania, the first president, Julius Nyerere, emerged as a politically secure autocrat who used both strong administrative and party-based control while marginalising the legislature. The regime Nyerere founded, moreover, still holds power through the ruling CCM party and, thus, outlasted both Kenyatta's and Kaunda's. From this observation, further questions arise. When and why would an autocrat choose to allow for more legislative autonomy if seemingly secure autocrats like Nyerere chose not to? And is legislative autonomy always a matter of executive choice, or can it also result from strong elite factions asserting themselves and – without this being the autocrat's intent – transforming the legislature into an arena for elite bargaining?
