A Two-Headed Creature: Bicameralism in African Autocracies

Abstract

Since the 1990s, seventeen African states have added a second chamber to their legislatures. This sudden trend is puzzling for two reasons. First, bicameral legislatures have decreased by 33 percent worldwide. Second, although upper houses often aim to improve democratic representation, descriptive statistics suggest these institutional changes were not due to democratic or representative pressures. The changes occurred primarily in hybrid regimes. What explains this resurgence of bicameral legislatures in Africa? I argue that incumbents introduce a second chamber when the opposition has sufficient power in the lower chamber to contain the executive branch. I adopt a mixed-methods approach combining statistical analysis and two case studies of Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe. I find that African incumbents have created a second chamber to (1) weaken the legislature as a whole and the opposition in particular and (2) manage intra-party dissent.