The Politics of Legislative Oversight: Committee Assignment and Output in Kenya

• In Event: Conflict and Constraints: New Insights from African Politics

Abstract

Legislative oversight is a cornerstone of horizontal accountability. However, there is significant variation across states in levels of formal legislative influence over executive ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs). This variation structures the logics of legislative committee work. Using data on committee assignment and meetings from Kenya, this paper shows that when legislative committees have limited formal influence over MDAs, committee work serves to accentuate informal relationships between legislators and executive branch officials – including through personalized side payments. This feature of committee work influences the relative value of different committees to individual committee work. The data shows that committee assignment is driven not by subject matter expertise or constituency demands, but by access to lucrative departmental and oversight committees.

Author

• Ken Ochieng' Opalo, Georgetown University