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| Volume IX, March 2002, Number 1 |
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| EXCERPT: Weak Institutions and Democracy: The Case of the Yemeni Parliament, 1993-97 |
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| Abdu H. Sharif |
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Dr. Sharif is a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Peace of the American University in Washington, DC. He wishes to acknowledge the financial support given to him by the Fulbright fellowship program during an early phase of this study.
The first elected Yemeni parlia-
ment (1993-1997) is, in many
respects, an archetype of political
liberalization from above. To the extent that this institution managed to survive, it had to become subservient to the regime that allowed it to come into existence. Yet, despite its significance for democratic-transition research, the Yemeni legislature appears to have received little attention from researchers or academics. This study seeks to address this shortcoming by focusing attention on Yemen's parliamentary experience during the early phase of democratic consolidation in that country. I will argue, on the basis of extensive research, that the first elected Yemeni parliament majlis al-nuwab suffered from important limitations which, throughout its four-year term, tended to weaken its potential as a democratic institution.
A Framework for Analysis
There is much in the literature of the past years that can provide criteria designed to evaluate legislatures in diverse national contexts. Nelson Polsby categorizes legislatures according to their power levels, from transformative legislatures with real power to shape legislation to legislatures with no real power or policy impact, but serving as arenas of debate.1 Michael Mezey classifies legislatures into three categories according to their level of performance: 1) a powerful legislature with the ability to modify and reject executive bills; 2) a moderately powerful legislature with the ability to modify but not completely reject government bills; 3) a weak legislature with no ability to modify or to reject government bills.2 Still another set of criteria provided in the literature is designed for assessing the informal functions of legislatures, including the capacity to mobilize popular support, foster legitimacy, represent the people's concerns, manage conflict, broker interests, recruit leaders and build consensus.3 Together, these criteria provide important indicators for analyzing legislatures on a cross-national basis. The Yemeni case involves a weak legislature, the consequence of which was manifested in the failure of the 1993 majlis to either play its proper role or solve severe political conflicts in the country. As elsewhere in the political system, the legitimacy of this institution was severely weakened by a number of factors, both internal and external, which will be spelled out in this study.
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1 Nelson Polsby, "Legislatures," ed. Philip Norton, Legislatures (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 128.
2 Michael Mezey, "Classifying Legislatures," in Norton, op. cit., pp. 155-56.
3 See Richard A. Styskal, "Some Aspects of Group Representation in the Philippine Congress," eds. G. R. Buntan and Chang Lim Kim, Legislative Systems in Developing Countries (Durham: Duke University Press, 1975), p. 234.
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