REMEMBERING DU: AN EPISODE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MALAWIAN POLITICAL CULTURE

In September of 1962, Dunduzu Kaluli Chisiza, Secretary Generalof the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), ‘prison graduate’and prospective Minister of Finance for Nyasaland, died in acar crash. Immediately, rumours began to circulate that thiswas no accident but a case of political murder. For the firsttime, ‘car accident’ became a metaphor for politicalviolence in colonial Malawi. This article examines the availableevidence pertaining to the accident and concludes that althoughit appears not to indicate foul play, much of it was not madepublic and this, coupled with a troubled political climate,bred suspicion. It is argued that the rumours about DunduzuChisiza's death demonstrate a popular awareness that the imageof political consensus advanced by the MCP during the late 1950sand early 1960s was false. Further, the rumours reveal a profoundambivalence about the growing personalization of rule underDr H. Kamuzu Banda. While the Cabinet Crisis of 1964 was thefirst public demonstration of leadership rupture, it was a culminationof tensions rooted in an earlier period, tensions which werealready felt by many and expressed through rumour in 1962 andafter.     

Flying solo: Explaining single-party cabinets under minority presidentialism

In recent years, the comparative literature on presidential democracy has emphasised the role of coalitional politics in attenuating the ‘perils’ facing minority presidents. Yet since the beginning of the Third Wave of democratisation in 1974, a surprising number of minority presidents have eschewed cabinet coalitions (defined minimally as the awarding of at least one portfolio to a party other than the nominal party of the president). Unipartisan governments are observed just under half of the time. What explains the adoption of single-party cabinets by minority presidents? Cross-sectional time-series analysis is employed to address this question. Hypotheses are tested that relate to the size and distribution of the formateur (presidential) and largest non-formateur parties that make up the legislature; the nature of party linkages and ideological distance between the president and possible partisan allies; and the extent of reactive veto powers held by the president.     

The Leprosy Problem in Africa

This year marks the 21st anniversary of the British Empire LeprosyRelief Association, familiarly known as Belra. The author hasbeen interested in the leprosy problem for many years, in thecourse of which he has visited scores of leprosariums both inAfrica and in other parts of the world.     

Optimism, Pessimism, and Coalitional Presidentialism: Debating the Institutional Design of Brazilian Democracy

Research on Brazil's political institutions has gone through several phases since democratisation in 1985. In the early years of democracy, pessimism prevailed with regard to governability. This view gave way in the mid-1990s to a more optimistic view that stressed two innovations of the Constitution of 1988: enhanced presidential power and centralised legislative procedure. In recent years, a third phase of research has shifted attention to the crucial role of inter-party alliances. These analytical approaches have converged into an emerging research programme on 'coalitional presidentialism', which places executive-legislative relations at the centre stage of macropolitical analysis. This article reviews the three phases of the debate and reflects on future research agendas.     

Agenda Power,Executive Decree Authority,and the Mixed Results of Reform in the Brazilian Congress

This article examines how institutional change in the use of extraordinary legislation affects delegation of power and unilateral action in new democracies. From 1988 to 2001, Brazilian presidents were able to reissue decrees indefinitely and thus had substantial legislative power. In 2001, Congress amended the constitution so as to restrict the president to a single reissue of each lapsed decree. This reform has had mixed results: although it ended the practice of infinite reissues, it induced Presidents Cardoso and Lula to use more decrees than previous executives had. Presidential agenda power, rather than being reduced, has been sharpened. By analyzing patterns of presidential initiatives from 1995 to 2005, we demonstrate the mixed results of this constitutional reform.     

NIGEL BALCHIN AND THE POLITICS OF SOUNDNESS

The bulk of Nigel Balchin's fiction follows the same pattern – a sound male character observing an unsound one; his plots are occasionally more complicated, as when a character examines critically his own soundness or when scientific soundness is transformed into political unacceptability. The novels are therefore a good guide to soundness as a golden mean. But rulers need to balance sense and vision. Balchin questions the value of bureaucratic games in modern organizations which harm a balanced resolution. It is surprising that as a psychologist who understands the pragmatic of interpersonal politics in organizations he failed himself to acquire the depth of vision of a great political novelist.