Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T08:31:32.543Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constrained Presidential Power in Africa? Legislative Independence and Executive Rule Making in Kenya, 1963–2013

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2019

Ken Ochieng’ Opalo
Ken Ochieng’ Opalo*
Affiliation:
School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
*
*Corresponding author. Email: koo6@georgetown.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Do institutions constrain presidential power in Africa? Conventional wisdom holds that personalist rule grants African presidents unchecked powers. Consequently, there is very little research on African institutions such as legislatures and their impact on executive authority. In this article, the author uses original data on the exercise of presidential authority (issuance of subsidiary legislation) to examine how legislative independence conditions presidential rule making in Kenya. The study exploits quasi-exogenous changes in legislative independence, and finds that Kenyan presidents issue relatively more Legal Notices under periods of legislative weakness, but are constrained from doing so under periods of legislative independence. These findings shed new light on institutional politics in Kenya, and illustrate how executive–legislative relations in the country conform to standard predictions in the literature on unilateral executive action.

Keywords

institutionslegislaturesexecutive powerexecutive–legislative relations
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 1341 - 1358
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aleman, E and Tsebelis, G (2005) The origins of presidential conditional agenda-setting power in Latin America. Latin American Research Review 3 (1):3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariotti, MH and Golder, SN (2018) Partisan portfolio allocation in African democracies. Comparative Political Studies 51 (3):341–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arriola, L (2009) Patronage and political stability in Africa. Comparative Political Studies 42 (10):1339–1362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkan, JD (1987) The electoral process and peasant–state relations in Kenya. In Hayward FM (ed.), Elections in Independent Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 213–238.Google Scholar
Barkan, JD (ed.) (2009) Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Barkan, JD and Chege, M (1989) Decentralizing the state: district focus and the politics of reallocation in Kenya. Journal of Modern African Studies 27 (3):431–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkan, JD and Matiangi, F (2009) Kenya’s tortuous path to successful legislative development. In Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, pp. 33–72.Google Scholar
Blackburn, ML (2015) The relative performance of poisson and negative binomial estimators. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 77 (4):605–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaydes, L (2011) Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bogaards, M (2008) Dominant party systems and electoral volatility in Africa: a comment on Mozaffar and Scarritt. Party Politics 14 (1):113–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolton, A and Thrower, S (2016) Legislative capacity and executive unilateralism. American Journal of Political Science 60 (3):649–663.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, C (2003) Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, C (2011) Politically allocated land rights and the geography of electoral violence: the case of Kenya in the 1990s. Comparative Political Studies 44 (10):1311–1342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratton, M and van de Walle, N (1994) Neopatrimonial regimes and political transitions in Africa. World Politics 46 (4):453–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, S (2001) Authoritarian leaders and multiparty elections in Africa: how foreign donors help to keep Kenya’s Daniel Arap Moi in power. Third World Quarterly 22 (5):725–739.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, JM and Shugart, MS (1998) Institutional design and executive decree. In Carey JM and Shugart MS (eds), Executive Decree Authority. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 274–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheibub, JA, Elkins, Z and Ginsburg, T (2011) Latin American presidentialism in comparative and historical perspective. Texas Law Review 89, 1707–1739.Google Scholar
Chiou, F-Y and Rothenberg, LS (2014) The elusive search for presidential power. American Journal of Political Science 58 (3):653–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chiou, F-Y and Rothenberg, LS (2016) Presidential unilateral action: partisan influence and presidential power. Public Choice 167 (1):145–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cockerham, AG and Crew, R (2017) Factors affecting governors’ decisions to issue executive orders. State and Local Government Review 49 (1):6–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, GW and Morgenstern, S (2001) Latin America’s reactive assemblies and proactive presidents. Comparative Politics 33 (2):171–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derring, C and Maltzman, F (1999) The politics of executive orders: legislative constraints on presidential power. Political Research Quarterly 52 (4):767–783.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dulani, BM (2011) Personal Rule and Presidential Term Limits in Africa. PhD thesis. East Lansing: Michigan State University.Google Scholar
Elischer, S (2013) Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferree, KE (2010) The social origins of electoral volatility in Africa. British Journal of Political Science 40, 759–779.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, JA and Warber, AL (2012) Circumventing adversity: executive orders and divided government. Presidential Studies Quarterly 42 (2):256–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francois, P, Rainer, I and Trebbi, F (2015) How is power shared in Africa? Econometrica 83 (2):465–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandhi, J (2008) Political Institutions Under Dictatorship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gertzel, C (1970) The Politics of Independent Kenya. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Good, K (1968) Kenyatta and the organization of Kanu. Canadian Journal of African Studies 2 (2):115–136.Google Scholar
Hakes, JE (1970) The Parliamentary Party of the Kenya African National Union. Thesis. Durham, NC: Duke University.Google Scholar
Hassan, M (2016) A state of change: district creation in Kenya after the beginning of multiparty elections. Political Research Quarterly 69 (3):510–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassan, M and Sheely, R (2017) Executive–legislative relations, party defections, and lower level administrative unit proliferation: evidence from Kenya. Comparative Political Studies 50 (12):1595–1631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornsby, C (1985) The Member of Parliament in Kenya, 1969–1983: The Election, Background and Position of the Representative and Implications for his Role in the One-Party State. PhD thesis. Oxford, UK: University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Howell, W (2003) Power Without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, RH and Rosberg, CG (1982 ) Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, NM, Malesky, E and Weymouth, S (2014) Unbundling the relationship between authoritarian legislatures and political risk. British Journal of Political Science 44 (3):655–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyapoya, V (1979) The politics of succession in Africa: Kenya after Kenyatta. Africa Today 26 (3):7–29.Google Scholar
Levitsky, S and Way, L (2010) Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mkandawire, T (2015) Neopatrimonialism and the political economy of economic performance in Africa: critical reflections. World Politics 67 (3):563–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morse, YL (2014) Party matters: the institutional origins of competitive hegemony in Tanzania. Democratization 21 (4):655–677.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mozaffar, S and Scarritt, JR (2005) The puzzle of African party systems. Party Politics 11 (4):399–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Negretto, GL (2004) Government capacities ADN policy making by decree in Latin America: cases of Brazil and Argentina. Comparative Political Studies 37 (5):531–562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onoma, AK (2010) The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Opalo, KO (2019) Replication Data for: Constrained Presidential Power in Africa? Legislative Independence and Executive Rule-making in Kenya, 1963-2013, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/3RVUT0, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:dZ5GNZucyGa+3dBj8PknKw=[fileUNF]Google Scholar
Opalo, KO (2012) African elections: two divergent trends. Journal of Democracy 23 (3):80–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Opalo, KO (2014) The long road to institutionalization: the Kenyan legislature and the 2013 elections. Journal of Eastern African Studies 8 (1):63–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Opalo, KO (2015) Institutions and Political Change: The Case of African Legislatures. PhD thesis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.Google Scholar
Opalo, KO (forthcoming) Legislative Development in Africa: Politics and Post-Colonial Legacies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oyugi, WO (1994) Uneasy Alliance: Party State Relations in Kenya. Nairobi: East African Education Publishers, pp. 153–192.Google Scholar
Pereira, C, Power, TJ and Renno, L (2005) Under what conditions do presidents resort to decree power? Theory and evidence from the Brazilian case. Journal of Politics 67 (1):178–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereira, C, Power, TJ and Renno, L (2008) Agenda power, executive decree authority, and the mixed results of reform in the Brazilian Congress. Legislative Studies Quarterly 33 (1):5–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitcher, MA (2012 ) Party Politics and Economic Reform in Africa’s Democracies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, D (2005) Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, D and Young, DJ (2007) Institutionalization of political power in Africa. Journal of Democracy 18 (3):126–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pregibon, D (1980) Goodness of link test for generalized link models. Applied Statistics 29, 15–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Punder, H (2009) Democratic legitimation of delegated legislation: a comparative view of the America, British, and German law. The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 58 (2):353–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsey, JB (1969) Classical model selection through specification error tests. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 31 (2):350–371.Google Scholar
Riedl, RB (2014) Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rottinghaus, B and Warber, AL (2015) Unilateral orders as constituency outreach: executive orders, proclamations, and the public presidency. Presidential Studies Quarterly 45 (2):289–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saiegh, SM (2011) Ruling by Statute: How Uncertainty and Vote Buying Shape Lawmaking. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shair-Rosenfield, S and Stoyan, AT (2017) Constraining executive action: the role of legislator professionalization in Latin America. Governance 30 (2):301–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sissokho, O and Thomas, MA (2005) Liaison legislature: the role of the national assembly in Senegal. Journal of Modern African Studies 43 (1):97–117.Google Scholar
Throup, D (1993) Elections and political legitimacy in Kenya. Journal of the International African Institute 63 (3):371–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thrower, S (2017) To revoke or not revoke? The political determinants of executive order longevity. American Journal of Political Science 61 (3):642–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widner, J (1992) The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya: From Harambee! To Nyayo! Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, J (2008) Do authoritarian institutions constrain? How legislatures affect economic growth and investment. American Journal of Political Science 52 (2):322–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Opalo supplementary material

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/3RVUT0
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Opalo supplementary material

Opalo supplementary material 1

Download Opalo supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 428.2 KB