China and African Parliaments

China and African Parliaments maps the political controversies surrounding the designing, making, and utilisation of three parliament buildings in Southern Africa that were financed and constructed by the People’s Republic of China (China). The book is the first to explore and explain the impact of China’s expanding influence in African parliaments.

The financing of African parliament buildings is a new and tangible phenomenon around which to understand China-Africa relations, the evolution of African parliaments, and policy-relevant debates on contemporary representative politics in Africa - topics all tackled in this book. The book draws on eight months of mixed-method fieldwork in Lesotho, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Data was collected through official access to all three buildings, key informant interviews with political and civil society elites, and focus group discussions with a cross-section of ordinary citizens who live and work around the buildings. The book makes two distinct contributions to the China-Africa relations and African parliaments literature. The first contribution is to advance a ground-breaking argument that China’s method of donating Parliament buildings to African countries indicates that it is targeting the institution as a site of long-term influence. The second contribution is to make a theoretical and comparative case to utilise discussion of the concept of African legislative institutionalisation through, and in juxtaposition to, these Chinese government-funded parliament buildings.

Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, gender and political representation, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, comparative political thought, and the nature of the continent’s engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged, as is interdisciplinary research and work that considers ethical issues relating to the study of Africa. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The focus of the series is on sub-Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest.

Series Editors: Nic Cheeseman (University of Birmingham), Peace Medie (University of Bristol), and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (University of Oxford).

Innocent Batsani-Ncube, Lecturer in African Politics, Queen Mary, University of London

Innocent Batsani-Ncube is a Lecturer in African Politics at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL). He received his PhD from SOAS and was awarded the 2022-2024 African Studies Association UK Prize for the best doctoral thesis in African studies. His journal article also won the Journal for Southern African Studies’ 2023 Terence Ranger Prize. He is a Chevening Scholar and prior to academia, he was a leading figure in Zimbabwean civil society, where he coordinated United Nations Democracy Fund supported civic projects and participated in the Zimbabwe national constitution making process.