ASA Doctoral Researcher, Innocent Batsani-Ncube will present a paper at the 2021 IPSA Virtual World Congress on Wednesday 14 July 2021. The congress will run from the 10th to the 15th of July.
Innocent’s paper is entitled, ‘Building an imperfect institution?’: the symbolic significance of Chinese government donated parliament buildings in Harare, Lilongwe and Maseru.
Drawing on his fieldwork material, Innocent discusses how the Chinese funded, constructed and maintained parliament buildings in Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe impact domestic politics in general and the political institution of parliament in particular.
Specifically, he argues that compared to the modest physical structures that the buildings replace, the new buildings have enhanced the conspicuousness of the institution of parliament, amplified the sociopolitical significance of parliament and entrenched the technology of participatory representative politics. This paper contributes to our understanding of the impact of China’s new political influencing strategies on the development of legislative institutions in Africa.