Constitutional Bargaining, Eminent Domain, and the Quality of Contemporary African Institutions: A Test of the Incremental Reform Hypothesis

Roger Congleton and Dongwoo Yoo
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Dongwoo Yoo: West Virginia University, Department of Economics

No 15-27, Working Papers from Department of Economics, West Virginia University

Abstract: According to the incremental reform hypothesis, constitutions are rarely adopted whole cloth; thus the starting point, scope for bargaining, and number of reforms, jointly determine the trajectory of constitutional history. We test the relevance of this theory for Africa by analyzing the formation and reform of the independence constitutions negotiated and adopted during the 1950s and early 1960s. We find historical evidence that independence occurred incrementally and that the African countries that experienced the fewest constitutional moments and narrowest domain of bargaining after independence have better contemporary institutions than states that began with less restrictive constitutional rules and experienced more constitutional moments.

Keywords: Decolonization; Independence; Constitutional Negotiations; Constitutional Bargaining; Post-Colonial Reform; Eminent Domain; Takings; Institutions; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K11 N47 O43 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-gro and nep-his
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