Legislative Oversight and Policy-Reforms in “Unsettled” Political Contexts of Public Administration

The interface between legislative oversight and policy-implementation processes in “unsettled” contexts of political-administrative reforms is rarely studied. By integrating organizational and legislative oversight approaches, this article explore the effectiveness of legislative oversight during implementation of structural-devolution reforms and policies for output democracy in local governments. Data involved interviews with administrative executives in local governments and documentary analysis of statutory reports and surveys in Kenya. It was found that collective-action problems to legislative oversight lend to equivocal institutional relationships, poor role conception of legislative activities, political tensions between the central and local governments, and parochial rather than institutional interpretations of policy processes and political representation. These factors posed critical constrains to effective policy implementation and structural working relations between legislatures and administrators in local government. Moreover, priorities for political profitability of legislative oversight and patronizing structures of political parties positively correlated to unsettled nature of reform-implementation outputs in local government. In sum, overreliance on political stewardship to enhance implementation of local-governance reforms can sophisticate legislative oversight and policy-reform outputs in public administration.