CENTRE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH EMERGING LEGISLATURE OR RUBBER STAMP? THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AFTER TEN YEARS OF DEMOCRACY Joel Barkan CSSR Working Paper No. 134 Published by the Centre for Social Science Research University of Cape Town 2005 Copies of this publication may be obtained from: The Administrative Officer Centre for Social Science Research University of Cape Town Private Bag Rondebosch, 7701 Tel: (021) 650 4656 Fax: (021) 650 4657 Email:
[email protected] Price in Southern Africa (incl. VAT and postage): R 5.00 or it can be downloaded from our website http://www.cssr.uct.ac.za/index.html ISBN 1-77011-068-2 © Centre for Social Science Research, UCT, 2005 CENTRE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH Democracy in Africa Research Unit EMERGING LEGISLATURE OR RUBBER STAMP? THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AFTER TEN YEARS OF DEMOCRACY Joel Barkan CSSR Working Paper No. 134 November 2005 Joel D. Barkan is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and a Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington. He was a Research Fellow at the Democracy in Africa Research Unit within the CSSR at the University of Cape Town in 2004. Emerging Legislature or Rubber Stamp? The South African National Assembly After Ten Years of 1 Democracy Abstract This paper examines the role of the South African National Assembly in comparative perspective by discussing the experience of the Assembly since 1994 in comparison to the development of legislative institutions elsewhere in Africa. The paper thus begins with an overview of seven sets of variables that seem to drive the process of legislative development across the continent, and then turns to the South African case.