CODESRIA

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE INSTITUTE

Theme: The Legislature in Africa’s Democratic Transition

Call for Applications for the 2006 Session

The CODESRIA Democratic Governance Institute is an interdisciplinary forum which brings together African scholars working on topics related to the broad theme of governance. The aim of the Institute is to promote research and debates on issues connected to the conduct of public affairs and the management of the general development process in Africa. The Institute was launched in 1992 and has been held every year since then in broad collaboration with the Cheikh Anta DiopUniversity, Dakar, Senegal. It is serves the critical function of forging links among a younger generation of African intellectuals and meeting the scientific needs of these intellectuals in terms of access to recent documentation, participation in current debates, the retooling of their research capacities, and the updating of their conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches. Increasingly, the Institute appeals to the interests of African policy intellectuals and civil society activists, thereby permitting a judicious mix of researchers, activists, and policy makers to be achieved in the admission of participants. In general, a total of fifteen African researchers drawn from across the continent and the Diaspora, and a few non-African scholars participate in the Institute each year.

Objectives:

The main objectives of the Governance Institute are to:

q encourage the sharing of experiences among researchers, activists and policy makers from different disciplines, methodological and conceptual orientations, and geographical experiences on a common theme over an extended period of time;

q promote and enhance a culture of democratic values that allows Africans effectively to identify and tackle the governance issues confronting their continent; and

q foster the participation of scholars in discussions and debates about the processes of democratisation taking place inAfrica.

Organisation:
The activities of all CODESRIA institutes centre on presentations made by resident researchers, visiting resource persons, and the participants whose applications for admission as laureates are successful. The sessions are led by a scientific director who, with the help of invited resource persons, ensures that the laureates are exposed to the range of research and policy issues generated by or arising from the theme of the Institute for which they are responsible. Open discussions drawing on books and articles relevant to the theme of a particular institute or a specific topic within the theme are also encouraged. Each of the laureates selected to participate in any of the Council’s institutes is required to prepare a research paper to be presented during the course of the particular institute they attend. Laureates are expected to draw on the insights which they gain from the Institute in which they participate to produce a revised version of their research papers for consideration for publication by CODESRIA. For each institute, the CODESRIA Documentation and Information Centre (CODICE) prepares a comprehensive bibliography on the theme of the year. Access is also facilitated to a number of documentation centres in and around Dakar.

The 2006 Session: The Legislature in Africa’s Democratic Transition

The wave of popular pressures for political reform that spread across Africa in the period stretching from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s culminated in the restoration of electoral pluralism in most of the countries of the continent. This development went hand-in-hand with the adoption of constitutional frames that, nominally at least, guaranteed an important role in governance to the legislative arm of government. The particular form, content and scope which legislative power and mandate took differed from country to country, as did the structuring of its relations with the executive and judicial arms of government. However, in every African country, as democratic forms of politics were re-introduced on the back of the collapse of military and single party rule, there was a strong accent placed, formally at least, on the role of the legislature in the building and consolidation of democracy. Implicit in this was the position, broadly, shared, that the legislature is the embodiment of the sovereignty of the people. In this role, it was expected not only to make laws for the welfare of the generality of the populace but also to serve both as a democratically-empowered agency of restraint on the executive arm of government and a forum for the mobilisation of popular participation in the broad governmental process. Needless to say, the robustness with which it could carry out its functions was always going to be a function of its ability to maintain a degree of internal coherence, relative autonomy vis-à-vis the executive arm, and proximity to the pulse of the electorate. Also important is the extent to which the legislature is itself representative as an institution that captures the diversities of society.

Ordinarily, the important role assigned to the legislature in the renewed quest for democratic governance in Africa, and the high hopes of the populace in the office of the elected representative are issues which should be considered a routine part of democratic politics. However, in the context of Africa, they carried an added significance deriving from the fact that the legislative arm of government was perhaps the biggest loser from the decades of military and single party rule that pervadedAfrica from the second half of the 1960s to the mid-1990s. All over the continent, as political authoritarianism took hold, the legislature was either proscribed outrightly or completely subordinated to the executive arm of government; legislative politics came to be severely underdeveloped in every sense. It is in part because of this underdevelopment that many (donor) initiatives were introduced in the period from the 1990s onwards to “build the capacity” of parliament in different parts ofAfrica. And without doubt, there were, indeed, technical capacities in need of being developed. But clearly, the issues arising from the weaknesses of the legislature are not simply or only technical in nature; in fact, they are mainly – and perhaps overwhelmingly political in nature. These problems have manifested themselves in a variety of ways, including through the struggles for relative autonomy from the executive, tensions arising from the tendency towards presidentialism in Africa’s new democracies, the instability and fragmentation of political parties, the poor structuring of the relationship between elected legislators and party bosses, the easy vulnerability of electoral systems to various kinds of manipulation, the frequent resort by the executive to a “security” cover for riding roughshod over parliament, the under-funding of parliament and poor harnessing of the funds available for deepening the foundations of democratic politics, the erosion of the domestic policy environment by donor conditionality, etc. In many ways, the institutional experiences of the legislature in the contemporary quest for democratic renewal both mirrors and summarises the entire record of the politics of the democratic process itself.

Through the 2006 Governance Institute, the Council proposes to focus scholarly attention on parliament both as an institutional expression of and an arena in Africa’s quest for democratic governance. Prospective participants will be encouraged to review existing debates on the role and place of the legislative arm of government in contemporary African politics, produce fresh empirical and analytic insights, engage in a comparative analysis of their findings and reflect on the challenges posed by their own work to inherited/dominant conceptual frames. The legislature as an arena of debate is a minefield of information on the different political trends, tendencies and struggles of the day in any country; laureates of the 2006 Governance institute will be encouraged to read the politics of democratisation in contemporary Africa as seen through the lenses of parliament. But they will also be challenged to identify the silences that may be in evidence in the legislative debates that occur.

The Director

For every session of its various institutes, CODESRIA appoints an external scholar with a proven track-record of quality work to provide intellectual leadership. Directors are senior scholars known for their expertise in the topic of the year and for the originality of their thinking on it. They are recruited on the basis of a proposal which they submit and which contains a detailed course outline covering methodological issues and approaches; the key concepts integral to an understanding of the object of a particular Institute and the specific theme that will be focused upon; a thorough review of the state of the literature designed to expose laureates to different theoretical and empirical currents; a presentation on various sub-themes, case-studies and comparative examples relevant to the theme of the particular Institute they are applying to lead; and possible policy questions that are worth keeping in mind during the entire research process. Candidates for the position of Director should also note that if their application is successful, they will be asked to:

- participate in the selection of laureates;

- identify resource-persons to help lead discussions and debates;

- design the course for the session, including the specification of sub-themes;

- deliver a set of lectures and provide a critique of the papers presented by the resource persons and the laureates;

- submit a written scientific report on the session.

In addition, the Director is expected to (co-)edit the revised versions of the papers presented by the resource persons with a view to submitting them for publication in one of CODESRIA’s collections. The Director also assists CODESRIA in assessing the papers presented by laureates for publication as a special issue of Africa Development or as monographs.

Resource Persons

Lectures to be delivered at the Institute are intended to offer laureates an opportunity to advance their reflections on the theme of the programme and on their own research topics. Resource Persons are, therefore, senior scholars or scholars in their mid-career who have published extensively on the topic, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it. They will be expected to produce lecture materials which serve as think pieces that stimulate laureates to engage in discussion and debate around the lectures and the general body of literature available on the theme.

One selected, resource persons must:

- submit a copy of their lectures for reproduction and distribution to participants not later than one week before the lecture begins ;

- deliver their lectures, participate in debates and comment on the research proposals of the laureates ;

- review and submit the revised version of their research papers for consideration for publication by CODESRIA not later than two months following their presentation.

Laureates

Applicants should be African researchers who have completed their university and /or professional training, with a proven capacity to carry out research on the theme of the Institute. Intellectuals active in the policy process and/or in social movements/civic organisations are also encouraged to apply. The number of places offered by CODESRIA at each session of its institutes is limited to fifteen (15) fellowships. Non-African scholars who are able to raise funds for their participation may also apply for a limited number of places.

Applications
Applicants for the position of Director should submit :

q an application letter;

q a proposal, not more than 15 pages in length, indicating the course outline and showing in what ways the course would be original and responsive to the needs of prospective laureates, specifically focussing on the issues to be covered from the point of view of concepts and methodology, a critical review of the literature, and the range of issues arising from the theme of the Institute;

q a detailed and up-to-date curriculum vitae; and

q three writing samples.

Applications for the position of resource persons should include:

q an application letter ;

q two writing samples ;

q a curriculum vitae ; and

q a proposal, not more than five (5) pages in length, outlining the issues to be covered in their proposed lecture.

Applications for Laureates should include :

q an application letter;

q a letter indicating institutional or organisational affiliation;

q a curriculum vitae ;

q a research proposal (two copies and not more than 10 pages), including a descriptive analysis of the work the applicant intends to undertake, an outline of the theoretical interest of the topic chosen by the applicant, and the relationship of the topic to the problematic and concerns of the theme of the 2003 Institute; and

q two reference letters from scholars and/or researchers known for their competence and expertise in the candidate's research area (geographic and disciplinary), including their names, addresses and telephone, e-mail, fax numbers.

An independent committee composed of outstanding African social scientists will select the candidates to be admitted to the institute.

The deadline for the submission of applications is set for 15 June, 2006. The Institute will be held in Dakar, Senegal in August, 2006.

All applications or requests for further information should be addressed to:

CODESRIA Democratic Governance Institute

Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop x Canal IV

BP 3304, CP 18524,

Dakar, Senegal.
Tel.: (221) 825 98 21/22/23

Fax: (221) 824 12 89

E-Mail: [email protected]

Website: www.codesria.org