Effects of Party System Fluidity on Legislative Oversight and Good Governance Indicators in Sub-Saharan African

Abstract

How fluidity of political party systems affects legislative oversight and worldwide governance indicators? Based on the analyses of 47 Sub-Saharan African countries, this article seeks to explore the correlation between Legislative Oversight and Worldwide Governance Indicators as well as the effects of Party System Fluidity on WGI and legislative oversight. Needless to mention, that the effects of party systems fluidity on governance indicators and legislative oversight have received little systematic scholarly attention. To fill the gap in the existing literature, the article explores how in/stability of party systems affects governance indicators and legislative oversight capacity in Sub-Saharan African countries. Analyzing the data on 47 Sub-Saharan African countries we find that legislative oversight has a strong positive relationship with Worldwide Governance Indicators, however, instability of political party systems expressed in high party systems fluidity has a negative relationship with legislative oversight as well as all six dimensions of WGI. These findings reaffirm that the stability of political party systems is a crucial factor that is essential for the development of democratic institutions and further evolvement of mechanisms of democratic control of Parliaments over the work of national Governments. The article is structured in the following way: The first part analyzes how academic scholarship defines legislative oversight and party system fluidity. The second part presents our data analysis methods. In conclusion, the paper discusses the key findings of the research, namely the effects of party systems fluidity on legislative oversight and WGI, in the context of Sub-Saharan African countries.