Comparative Legislative Autonomy of sub-Saharan Africa : Introducing Microanalytical Approaches

The comparative legislative autonomy of sub-Saharan Africa is an understudied research area with divergent findings and few generalizable conclusions. We propose to rectify the situation using microanalytical approaches and collecting a new data on policy making activity of five African legislatures. Building on a conceptual framework of statutory policy making, we complement the existing quantification by the new measure of deliberation time of passed bills. Contrary to the theoretical assumptions in the current debate, we have found no evidence of exceptionally subservient legislatures in anglophone sub-Saharan Africa. Simultaneously, we have found complex interplay between democracy and legislative independence. Many electoral democracies and autocracies in the subcontinent have highly independent legislatures serving as arenas for intra-elite bargaining. Legislative development does not seem associated with democracy. However, in democratic Ghana, the parliament is very independent in terms of legislative output without being an important arena for deliberation indicating another possible channel of legislative development.