"Indigenous Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: New Data on the Legal Integration of Traditional Governance and the Links with Democratisation."

Across the world, many indigenous groups practice their own, traditional forms of political organization. While these traditional political institutions co-exist with state institutions in about two-thirds of the UN member states, the phenomenon is most pronounced in Africa (Baldwin and Holzinger 2019). The co-existence of political institutions has the potential to cause contestation over authority between the groups and the state and to affect democracy – either enhancing it because traditional governance is sometimes participatory and consensus-based, or threatening it because of autocratic styles of governance or non-democratic values (Mamdani 1996, Ntesbeza 2005, Baldwin 2016). Legal acknowledgement of traditional political institutions may help dealing with this political pluralism (Ubink 2008, Muriaas 2011, Holzinger et al. 2016). We do not yet know much about the effects of legal integration on democracy, however. In this paper, we present the first results from a new time series dataset on the legal integration of indigenous institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The dataset is prepared by coding the legislation on traditional institutions in 35 African countries since decolonization, in collaboration with legal experts from each country. It includes legislation on rights to self-determination and self-governance, on representation and integration with the state political institutions, on land and natural resources, public order and security, culture and religion, among others. We first provide a descriptive overview of the data. Second, we test the relationship between the overall legislative activity on indigenous political institutions and democracy. We find indications that the legislation is linked with the future democratization of a country. Finally, we discuss further stages of the analyses presented here, and potential areas in which the new dataset can be used in future research agendas of indigenous political science. Baldwin, Kate and Katharina Holzinger (2019): Traditional Political Institutions and Democracy: Reassessing their Compatibility and Accountability, Comparative Political Studies 52(12): 1747-1774. Baldwin, Kate (2016). The Paradox of Traditional Leaders in Democratic Africa. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Holzinger, K., F. G. Kern and D. Kromrey (2016). The Dualism of Contemporary Traditional Governance and the State: Institutional Setups and Political Consequences, Political Research Quarterly 69: 469-481. Muriaas, R. L. (2011). Traditional Institutions and Decentralisation: A Typology of Co‐existence in sub-Saharan Africa, Forum for Development Studies 38: 87–107. Ntsebeza, L. (2005). Democracy Compromised. Chiefs and the Politics of the Land in South Africa. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Ubink, J. (2008). Traditional authorities in Africa. Resurgence in an era of democratisation, Leiden University Press.