Suchergebnisse

Since 2002, constituency development funds (CDFs) have been established in nine African countries, and another two countries have created "approximations" of CDFs in that they address the perceived need by members of the legislature for budgeted funds to spend on the development of the districts they represent. Thus, just under one-quarter of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have adopted some type of CDF. In this paper, we consider three alternative explanations for the apparent popularity of CDFs. Using data from the African Legislature Project and Afrobarometer, we find that the best account of the rise of CDFs is that while MP rightly perceive the need to maintain close contact with their constituents, they wrongly believe that their constituents look to them mainly for "pork." Instead, African constituents' primary expectations of their MP is that they regularly visit the district to learn what is on their minds, and to then quite literally "re-present" or transmit these views back to the central government via the legislature. In other words, while citizens desire stronger representation of their needs at the centre, MPs respond by delivering services and favours at the periphery (i.e. the district) thinking mistakenly that the CDFs are the answer to what the public wants. We also find little evidence of "good governance" advocates that CDFs lead to increased corruption or entrench MPs in office.

Daniel arap Moi's announcement in October 1982 that Kenya would henceforth allocate its resources for rural development on a decentralised basis, to be more responsive to the 'needs and aspirations of wananchi',1 is one of the clearest statements by an African President that the state must establish a better consultative relationship with the people it claims to serve.

Peasant-state relations in developing countries are often a function of the nature and extent of stratification in peasant populations. Where there is a rigid class structure, the prospects for cooperation by members of the peasantry are low, and large landowners tend to ally themselves with the state to exploit the rural poor. Where, on the other hand, the nature of rural stratification is ambiguous, "small" and "middle" peasants are able to organize themselves for collective action and to bargain effectively for state aid to their communities. The hypothesis is confirmed using survey data about the nature of peasant participation in the Harambee selfhelp development movement in rural Kenya. Effective peasant-state bargaining in Kenya has in turn contributed to the legitimacy of the Kenyan political system.