Does Returnee Ministers affect the Legitimacy of Post-conflict Governments?

• In Event: Post-Conflict Politics in Africa

Abstract

Past research from the Global North has emphasized that descriptive representation may enhance institutional legitimacy (eg. Sherer and Curry 2009, Clayton et al. 2018). Qualitative research indicate that local elites may use diaspora backgrounds of cabinet ministers’ in post-conflict states to insinuate that these are belonging to a privileged group which left during the conflict (eg. Turner 2008, Rock 2017, Rock 2018). Returnee ministers’ are thus commonly framed as “outsiders” disconnected from the local population. At the same time, diaspora returnees dominate many post-conflict state institutions and donors frequently support returnees to take on political positions at the highest level. It is assumed by policy makers that returnees can help reconstructing post-conflict state institutions into agreement with Western standards of government, while ensuring local ownership and thereby local legitimacy.
Despite the dominance of returnees in many post-conflict governments, no previous research has systematically investigated how the local population perceives returnees in these positions. With the use of a survey experiment in Liberia, this article demonstrates how high presence of returnees in post-conflict cabinets affects the legitimacy of the government negatively. Based on these results, this article argues that the presence of returnees in post-conflict cabinets may be interpreted as a case of descriptive representation. These findings add new theoretical understanding of representation and institutional legitimacy in post conflict contexts. Moreover, they provide important insights for policy makers working to ensure local legitimacy of statebuilding processes.

Author

• Anna Ida Rachel Rock, Uppsala University