LEGISLATURES ON THE RISE?

The bulk of the legislative-studies literature has instead focused on the U.S. or European experiences?on the legislative process in the context of consolidated democracies in advanced industrial societies rather than of emerging democracies in poor, agrarian, and often culturally divided societies.3 Although there has been some recent research on legislative development in Latin America and Asia, the work on Africa has been limited to a mere handful of case studies, none of which is comparative in scope. In countries where legislators are elected from single- member districts (SMDs) or multimember districts (MMDs), and especially in Africa where most countries are still predominantly agrarian despite continual migration to towns, constituency service takes two forms: * lawmakers regularly visit their home districts to meet constituents and offer them assistance for individual needs; and 2 they support small- to medium-scale development projects that provide district residents with public goods such as roads, water-supply systems, schools, health clinics, and meeting halls.