Introduction

Poverty reduction, one of the popular topics in development studies, has gained worldwide efforts after WWII. However, poverty is still widespread in African countries after many years of struggle. In this endeavour, it is worth mentioning that Africa has been undergoing a framework of good governance since the 1980s and 1990s to address many development dilemmas, including poverty. Notwithstanding, Rwanda and Burundi have also been influenced and made efforts under the logic of good governance, and the results of their development show a strong discrepancy (Nicaise 2019; Pellegatta 2020). The two countries share considerable historical similarities, having been placed in a unified colonial area for over 50 years (Louis 1963). After gaining independence in 1962, both countries were again plunged into a long period of unrest and ethnic conflict. Rwanda’s horrific Rwandan genocide erupted in 1994, while Burundi’s long civil war broke out from 1993 to 2005. Soon after peace was restored, the two countries’ development paths began to diverge. Until 2014, they showed a significant difference in their performance regarding poverty rates (39% in RwandaFootnote 1 and 65% in Burundi).

As two authoritarian states, the discussion of good governance may seem conflicting, based on the fact that good governance is in many cases seen as a framework for democratic development, while authoritarianism is often accompanied by limiting political pluralism, cracking down on political opponents and breeding rent-seeking behaviour (Malik et al. 2019). The current debate on authoritarianism and the development of good governance focuses on whether authoritarian states have become more democratic as a result of good governance (Noueihed 2010), the impact of the middle class in this context (Thompson 2004) and its nature as multiple modernity (Meyer and Marques 2018). Nevertheless, this paper wishes to discuss how authoritarian states internalise the good governance to achieve development goals, providing an analytical perspective on the interaction between authoritarian states and good governance.

The following work of this paper will be divided into several sessions. The first is a discussion of past research on good governance, broadly providing a perspective and path for understanding good governance. Secondly, the paper will develop a framework for testing good governance in the development context of the two countries, named the Three-Pillar Test Framework (TPTF), as a tool for analysing differences in development paths. Thirdly, the paper will analyse the development policies and outcomes of the two countries and explain the potential causes of the differences in the two development outcomes through the TPTF. Finally, the paper will conclude by explaining that the differences in development between the two countries stem from the gaps in performance on the TPTF.

Poverty reduction, institution-building and good governance

In the discussion and practice of poverty reduction, its endogenous dynamics are seen as stemming from domestic institution building. As an integral part of economic development, it helps to guide development action and is used to induce and protect change (Zafarullah 1980). It facilitates the creation of policies, the mobilisation and management of resources and the delivery of services to stimulate and sustain development (Salmen 1992). While few question the importance of institution-building for economic development, there has been no agreement on what institutions are essential for development (Rodríguez-Pose 2013). Following neo-institutionalists’ ideas, institutions can be understood at three levels. First, the macro-level of institutions refers to the basic organisational structures associated with democracy and capitalism. Second, meso-level institutions refer to the framework concerning the basic organisational structures of the state and society, which influence the power relations between social groups and the formulation and implementation of policy. Finally, micro-level institutions refer to public organisations’ standardised practices, regulations and daily procedures (Hall 1992). It is intuitive to notice how institutions can be defined as formal rules, conformity procedures and standardised practices that shape relations between individuals in all areas of politics and economics (Hall 1986). As one of the representatives of the institution-building framework, good governance is regarded to assist a country in achieving development through the acceptance of a ‘good’ institution (Dellepiane-Avellaneda 2010).

At the practical level, World Bank first put forwarded the concept of good governance in 1992, which included four aspects: management and efficiency of the public sector, accountability, a sound legal framework and the degree of openness and transparency of information (World Bank 1992). It was seen as a fast way to help countries to reform in development. Four years later, Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) was launched based on the World Bank’s updated understanding of good governance, containing six key elements (Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption) (World Bank 1996). Currently, WGI is being widely used as an annually updated tool for the good governance evaluation.

However, the debate on what constitutes a ‘good’ institution has never ceased. A common critique of the institutional framework of good governance is that the results of similar institutional reform programmes vary considerably from case to case (Gray 2016). From an ontological aspect, the one-size-fits-all approach under good governance has been widely criticised for failing to adequately consider the differences between different countries and regions while attempting to apply the same governance standards to all countries (Grindle 2007). In addition, the emphasis on democracy in the good governance framework does not seem necessary for ‘good governance’, as the premature introduction of democracy in some cases can lead to political instability. At the same time, some one-party states can perform equally well in promoting the rule of law (Ishiyama 2019). And instrumentally, Global South has often criticised the good governance framework for not working as it should and for being used as a admission ticket to global development in exchange for sufficient foreign aid (Anders 2005). Beyond that, the WGI similarly shifts the responsibility for governance to the national level and fails to include international actors. It also ignores power relations and defaults to the idea that power is given and unproblematic to explore how it can be used (Steffek and Wegmann 2021).

Even though many problems have arisen in the framework of good governance led by international organisations, it is worth exploring whether the concept of ‘good governance’ itself is still valid. At the academic and theoretical discussion level, good governance is considered to be inextricably linked to the new institutionalist economics (NIEs). By emphasising property rights, NIEs believe the central role of the institution is to reduce transaction costs to generate endogenous incentives for development (North 1992), and have also expanded into the political arena, arguing that lowering transaction costs in the political arena can help create more efficient political systems (North 1987). Therefore, the construction of the good governance framework is largely imbued with the philosophical logic of the NIEs’ quest to reduce transaction costs, based on the pursuit of political–economic institution-building to reduce rent-seeking (Gray and Khan 2010). Therefore, good governance is believed to lead institutions to be more equity (Rothstein and Teorell 2008), building and improving institutions’ resilience by increasing public trust (Trommel 2020). Subsequently, NIEs argue that the influencing factors of institution building or change are relative prices. In building institutions, one should consider where investments or efforts can be made to maximise returns (North 1990). Based on the reflection on the search for maximum efficiency and the premise that relative prices are fixed, the process of institution building can be seen as a process of institutional optimisation. Therefore, ‘good governance’ should be understood as a process of institutional building that is continuously optimised rather than as a framework with a list of tasks. This paper hopes to return the discussion of good governance to its part of institutional optimisation rather than limiting it to a discussion of the existing instrumental framework of good governance.

Methodology

This paper takes a qualitative methodological approach, using the most similar case method that exhibit similar contextual conditions but differ significantly in outcomes (Gerring and Cojocaru 2016). Rwanda and Burundi were made into a German colony during the Congress of Berlin in 1884, and they became a Belgian colony after WWI. During the colonial period, these two countries suffered cruel treatment from the colonisers, such as the 1933 identity card system that artificially distinguished ethnic identity, differentiating Tutsis and Hutus (Van Brakel 2016). By deliberately creating ethnic disputes, it set the precondition for many horrible incidents of ethnic conflict after they gain independence. Regarding national governance, the two countries have had much in common since independence. First, geographically, Rwanda covers 26,338 square kilometres (10,169 sq mi), while Burundi covers 27,830 square kilometres (10,750 sq mi), making the two countries similar in size. Moreover, the two countries’ topography is relatively the same, mainly consisting of hills and mountains and highlands and plains. Second, in terms of economic structure, the majority of the population in both countries is still based on agriculture in 2020, which accounted for around 90% of Burundi’s total population (ISTEEBU 2021) compared to 66% in Rwanda (NISR 2021). Moreover, the two countries also show similarities in political aspects. Both countries chose to establish presidential republics in the post-conflict period (Rwanda 1994; Burundi 2005), and both became authoritarian states. Paul Kagame, the decision-maker of the government soon after the genocide, was elected president in 2003 and had been running Rwanda for 20 years. Similarly, in Burundi, former president Pierre Nkurunziza ruled the country from 2005 until he passed away in 2020. In addition to their extraordinarily long tenures, both countries have been widely criticised for the severe restrictions on freedom of expression, harassment of domestic and international human rights organisations and so on (Human Rights Watch 2023a, c). Based on the similar development contexts of the two countries, this paper aims to construct an analytical framework to analyse the differences between the two countries in terms of good governance and poverty.

Three-Pillar Test Framework (TPTF) for Burundi and Rwanda

Following the discussion of NIEs, good governance is seen as a tool to reduce transaction costs and continuous institutional improvement. This paper aims to reconstruct a brief analytical framework, based on a struggle against a predetermined blueprint framework of institution building (Andrews 2013). The analytical framework is defined as TPTF and engages with security, inclusiveness and political settlement based on the desire to select elements according to the local development context. At the same time, bad governance in the context of this paper, which corresponds to good governance, fails to achieve these pillars and leading to poverty as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
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Argument flow of TPTF. Source: Made by the author

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It begins with a discussion of the connecting between security in good governance and poverty. Based on the consideration of maximising gains, the most crucial aspect for the two countries just recovering from war and conflict comes from their security. Preventing a relapse into civil war or inter-ethnic conflict became their primary concern.

Based on the desire for security and peace, international organisations widely regard the Security Sector Reform (SSR) as the most powerful weapon in terms of ensuring safety and enhancing Security Sector Governance (SSG). UNDP considers recipient countries can provide reliable, fair and effective security services after a successful SSR (UNDP 2003). OCED believes that SSR can have the capacity to go beyond a focus on traditional security, reforming the security sector while simultaneously improving the country’s institutions, and create a top-down, rationally functioning government (OECD 2005). A successful SSR, in this sense, can contribute to poverty reduction in several ways, such as by preserving infrastructure and providing development space (Rohwerder 2015).

As two agricultural countries, how to use the land became one of the first things they needed to consider after restoring peace. As a system that regulates the various social relationships that occur in land development, utilisation, remediation, protection and management activities, it plays an essential role in maintaining the social and economic order and the financial interests of the land. A proper land ownership system can be a valuable tool for poverty reduction (Meinzen-dick 2009). In addition to the importance of the land system for the newly restored peace countries, it is also imperative from the point of view of reducing transaction costs. A good land system can provide clear land planning ownership, reducing the uncertainty caused by unclear usage. This makes it easier for buyers and sellers to estimate the actual value of the land and reduces the additional costs associated with the transaction (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Security sector linkages to poverty reduction. Source: Made by the author

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As a critique of the established framework of good governance, this paper introduces political settlement as the third element of analysis to be discussed. It criticises good governance for not discussing power relations and their sources. It is defined as a combination of power and institutions that is mutually compatible and sustainable regarding economic and political viability (Khan 2010). He argues that power is rooted in history, and the study of power holdings is one of the essential factors with three aims of the analysis: horizontal and vertical distribution of power and how it is financed (Behuria et al. 2017). On this basis, including it in this paper’s discussion of institution building helps to differentiate the political power composition of the two countries, and by discussing the holdings power of the two countries, it is also possible to discuss the reasons for the different outcomes of national development (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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Land system linkages to poverty reduction. Source: Made by the author

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Governance and development in Rwanda

Brief historical background

Rwanda’s history from colonial times to the present is marked by significant transformations that have deeply influenced its sociopolitical landscape. The country was first colonised by Germany in the late nineteenth century but came under Belgian control after World War I. Under Belgian rule, Rwanda experienced a systematic reinforcement of the power of the Tutsi monarchy, exacerbating ethnic divisions within the society. The Belgians instituted identity cards in the 1930s, categorising individuals into Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, which further entrenched these divisions by linking social status and ethnicity (Phillips 2009). The drive for independence in the 1950s ignited deep-seated ethnic tensions, culminating in the 1959 Hutu Revolution where the Hutu majority overthrew the Tutsi monarchy. This period was characterised by significant violence against Tutsis and led to the establishment of a Hutu-led republic (Gourevitch 2004). The following decades were marred by instability and periodic violence, as successive Hutu governments implemented discriminatory policies against Tutsis.

The first Rwandan regime was led by Grégoire Kayibanda and lasted from 1962 to 1973. The government continued to repress and ostracise the former Tutsi rulers. Ethnic rivalries between Tutsis and Hutus were common, leading many Tutsis to flee to neighbouring countries to seek survival (Desrosiers 2014). Although the second leader, Juvenal Habyarimana, realised that the problem of the previous regime was discrimination and inequality against the Tutsis, the status of the Tutsis was not really improved. From 1973 to 1994, Rwanda had only one Tutsi governor, one Tutsi military officer, two Tutsi members of parliament and one Tutsi minister (Uvin 1999). In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) triggered the Rwandan Civil War by incursions from the north of the country. The civil war ended in 1993 with the signing of the Arusha Agreement as a sign of peace, but the Rwandan genocide took the opportunity to erupt in a shocking tragedy when the plane in which Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Ciprian Ntaryamira were travelling was shot down by a missile near Kigali airport on 6 April 1994.

Security sector reform

Rwanda’s efforts on security have been underway since the end of the genocide. With funding from the UNDP, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany, the interim government established the Rwanda Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission (RDRC) in July 1997. Under the Arusha Peace Accords of 1993, the RDRC demobilised and reintegrated ex-combatants from the former Rwandan People’s Army (RPA) and the former Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) into Rwandan communities and established a multi-ethnic defence force (Wilén 2012). In 2002, Rwanda joined the World Bank-funded Multi-Country Demobilisation and Reintegration Programme (MRDP), which provided a common regional framework for the peaceful reintegration of ex-combatants from nine countries in Central Africa between 2002 and 2009 (Verwimp and Verpoorten 2004). In the next phase, the RDRC’s disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme demobilised some 60,000 ex-combatants, of whom some 400 were women (Farr 2004), while the RPA was reduced from 80,000 soldiers in 2002 to 35,000 in 2009. Moreover, the RDRC incorporated a gender perspective into the DDR process by ensuring that the needs of women were met. Furthermore, in 2007, the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) and UNIFEM (now UN Women) established a gender desk to integrate a greater gender perspective into the SSR component of the programme (Holmes 2014). The unified DDR/SSR programme aimed to demilitarise citizens and ex-combatants while transforming the military culture into one that serves the civilian population and provides the structural conditions for lasting peace. Meanwhile, as part of SSR, Rwanda has established the Rwandan National Police (RNP) to spend billions in its annual campaign of community programmes on security, health insurance, building houses for people experiencing poverty, funding cooperatives, etc. (RNP 2021).

Restructuring the justice sector in Rwanda’s SSR process had also been very innovative. In mid-1998, Rwanda transformed the traditional community-based conflict resolution mechanism known as Gacaca into a tool for judging those accused of involvement in genocide (Uvin and Mironko 2003). Gacaca aimed to prosecute every genocide suspect, regardless of seniority or social status and started to rebuild and reconstruct Rwandan society. It opened up political debate and spawned new forms of democratic participation by appointing the people in the prosecution of genocide crimes and assigning the groups a central role in prosecuting genocide cases, and was flexible enough to pursue locally defined goals. This is also particularly important for women, with almost 40% of judges being female. In traditional cases dealing with family disputes and daily violations, women were excluded from any official role (Clark 2012). Gacaca contributed to the vindication of the genocide despite the fact that it was found guilty of seeking personal gain and not examining the RPF in subsequent investigations (Ingelaere 2016).

Land system

Rwanda had demonstrated a high degree of domestic inclusiveness in its land ownership policies. Since taking power in 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has implemented comprehensive land policies. Among all, three policies deserve particular attention—first, practising land-sharing among Tutsi returnees and Hutu residents. Immediately after the RPF gained power in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi refugees began to return to Rwanda, from which they were deported for two to three decades. To provide land for Tutsi returnees, the government first relied on game reserves, national parks, public lands and vacant lots left by Hutu refugees (Republic of Rwanda 2004). On the other hand, since much of the Tutsi original family land was occupied by their neighbours, the government instructed Hutu residents in the relatively land-rich eastern region to ‘share their property’ or, in a more accurate meaning, ‘give them half the property’ with the Tutsi returnees (Takeuchi 2019).

Second, gender equality is also given importance in land ownership. Rwanda is traditionally patriarchal, where women do not have a land inheritance. However, after the genocide, the government made great efforts to promote equality between men and women. The Rwandan Succession Law of 1999 established equal land inheritance rights for men and women. In addition, the Rwandan Constitution of 2003, the National Land Policy of 2004 and the Organic Land Law of 2005 all contain explicit provisions which add gender equality tasks to land rights and stipulate that all land shall be registered and the background of acquiring rights shall be considered equal in the context of different methods of acquiring land. The provisions of these four core efforts together constitute the new land policy and legal system in Rwanda (Daley et al. 2010).

Third, with four core policies concerning land registration, Rwanda also tried to map and title the land. In June 2012, Rwanda’s National Land Registry completed a nearly 4-year project that mapped each country’s 10.4 million lands and prepared title documents for 8 million landowners. It is an unprecedented achievement in a country where a lack of land ownership has weighed on the economy and escalated land conflict. The mapping plan promises to ease tensions by establishing an orderly land title registration and transfer system, moreover, to better convert the measured results into actual benefits. A registration team supported by Paul Kagame has launched a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the importance of ownership and reporting all land transactions. Managers have simplified procedures and registration forms. To provide greater access in rural areas where ownership is barely known, the registry decentralised services and introduced a new software platform to speed up transactions. By mid-2017, more than 7 million people had claimed their titles, and registration of sales, purchases and other types of transfers began to improve (Schreiber 2017).

Political settlement

From 1962, when Rwanda became an independent republic from Belgium, until the outbreak of the 1994 genocide, Rwanda had two Hutu regimes, led by Grégoire Kayibanda and Juvénal Habyarimana, when the country’s ethnic politics was characterised as antagonism, conflict and bitterness. During these three decades, political power was firmly in the hands of the Hutus, who limited Tutsi participation in society (education, employment, etc.) to about 9% through the establishment of an ethnic quota system (Hilker 2010). The rapid rise of the RPF in the late 1980s, along with Rwanda’s domestic political and economic turmoil, forced Habyarimana’s government to sign the Arusha Peace Agreement with it in 1993, which became one of the triggers for the Rwandan genocide (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4
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Political settlement linkages to poverty reduction. Source: Made by the author

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When the Rwandan genocide ended, the PRF, a Tutsi political party represented by Paul Kagame, gained power and formed a new Rwandan government. Since then, the RPF has gradually strengthened its party and held more power. In the 9 years of transition following the genocide, the RPF and the Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU), which it controls, claimed Rwanda would to be a ‘consensual democracy’. Since the late 2000s, they had been decentralising government institutions and powers, claiming that their goal was to destroy the political mechanisms that fuelled the genocide. The administrative organisation of the country was changing, and the newly created regions were becoming the focus of development endeavours. Resources would be allocated to the new districts through collective decision-making at an administrative level closer to the citizens (ICG 2001).

However, consultative democracy has been criticised as imposing one RPF’s ideology, as it bans or outlaws opposition parties through various means. Right after the genocide, the RPF outlawed the National Movement for Development and Revolutionary Democracy (MRND) and the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), previously the Hutu Ruling Party and the far-right Hutu Party (Curtis 2015). On the premise that the RPF reaffirmed its commitment to the 1993 Arusha Accords, other parties were given a chance to survive. However, they could not escape being banned if they were closely associated with the 1994 genocide, as well as political parties based on ethnicity or religion. On the eve of the promulgation of the new constitution in 2003, Parliament dissolved the Democratic Republican Movement (MDR), then the second largest party under being ‘divisionist’. A year earlier, the emerging party Democracy and Renewal-Ubuyanja (PDR-Ubuyanja) was also banned as it was related to MDR (Human Rights Watch 2003).

Following the 2003 referendum on a new constitution, RPF achieved a high degree of concentration of party strength and political power in the country. Rwanda became a de facto one-party state. To this day, the RPF remains irreplaceable in the nation, even as it faces many criticisms of its freedom of expression and secret arrests of opponents. In addressing the root causes of the genocide, Rwanda abolished a 60-year-old system of identity cards that carried an ethnic identity soon after the end of the genocide, even if that identity had been fictitious in the first place (Tan 2023). In addition, the new Constitution of 2003 provides for ‘eradicating genocide ideology and all its manifestations, divisionism and discrimination based on ethnicity, region or any other ground’ (Constitute project 2015). Therefore, RPF has applied ethnic amnesia therapy to Rwanda as it recovers from transition, preventing the fragmentation or rivalry of governmental power based on ethnic identity (Vandeginste 2014).

Governance and development in Burundi

Brief historical background

Burundi’s history from colonial times onwards is marked by deep-seated ethnic divisions and political instability, profoundly shaped by its colonial and post-colonial experiences. Like neighbouring Rwanda, Burundi came under German control in the late nineteenth century and was later managed by Belgium after World War I. The Belgians solidified the societal hierarchy by favouring the Tutsi minority for administrative and educational advancements, exacerbating ethnic tensions. Upon gaining independence in 1962, Burundi attempted to establish a constitutional monarchy, which quickly faltered due to ethnic strife. The early post-independence period was marred by assassinations and a series of coups, climaxing in the 1972 genocide (Ikiza) where approximately 100,000 to 300,000 Hutus were killed following a Hutu uprising (Russell 2015). This tragic event entrenched long-term cycles of violence and retribution between ethnic groups.

The situation worsened with the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically elected Hutu president in 1993, which plunged the country into a brutal civil war lasting until the early 2000s. In fact, however, this is not the first time that civil war has broken out in the country. With many coups d'état and ethnic struggles, Burundi has experienced five civil wars in 1965, 1972, 1988, 1991 and 1993, respectively (Nkurunziza and Ngaruko 2005). Unlike Rwanda, which has had only four presidents, Burundi has had eight presidents up to former President Nkurunziza. Frequent coups d'état and changes of government have led to chaos and stagnation in the country’s development. Despite various peace agreements and attempts at power-sharing, political stability has remained elusive. After the end of the civil war, unlike Rwanda’s stable development under the Kagame authoritarianism, the controversial third term of former President Pierre Nkurunziza in 2015 sparked further unrest and international criticism, highlighting the ongoing challenges in reconciling Burundi’s troubled past with its present need for governance and peace. This tumultuous history illustrates the complexities of Burundi’s struggle to forge a cohesive national identity amidst persistent internal conflicts.

Security sector reform

Burundi has also made efforts for peace since the end of the civil war. The Burundi–Dutch Security Sector Development (SSD) Programme was the one of the most important elements, which was established in April 2009. The SSD programme was implemented over 2 years by a programme team of international consultants and Burundians and comprised three pillars: defence, public security and governance. However, many stakeholders pointed out that the SSD programme risks failure if it tries to include institutional issues in the reform plan. Part of the problem is the reluctance of the main political players to accept change, and the key stakeholders have not really understood the importance of the SSR and the way in which it can be implemented (Ball 2014). As a part of SSR, establishing the National Police was also challenging, as Burundi previously had only one francophone style gendarmerie. In terms of quantity, the Burundi National Police (BNP) increased from 2000 in 2000 to 20,000 in 2007, with ex-combatants rapidly coming on board. However, joining the police is apparently because the police have more opportunities for rent-seeking, as they can extort money from the local population with minimal supervision (Féron and Krause 2022). In addition, there is little or no oversight of the police selection process, nor is there any training of civilian staff for policing tasks (Nindorera 2011). Therefore, the BNP is considered one of Burundi’s main sources of insecurity. At the same time, the parallel chain of command associated with CNDD-FDD and responsible for suppressing political opposition is also existed within the BNP, creating further instability element (ICG 2012).

Due to the lack of attention given to SSR by stakeholders, impunity and political murders are still widespread in Burundi. For example, the conflict during the presidential elections in 2010 led to many political murders, and in most cases, the families of the victims were unable to seek justice (Human Rights Watch 2012). And in the 2015 elections, based on the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) analysis of the conflict, it resulted in 1155 deaths between 2015 and 2016. At least 690 of the deaths counted by ACLED were civilians. In addition, more than 260,000 people have reportedly fled, and thousands disappeared without a trace.

Violence against civilians has consistently accounted for nearly 75% of activity since July 2015 and has increased since the beginning of 2016. At the start of the conflict, attacks against civilians were concentrated in and around the capital. Later, these attacks and civilian deaths became widespread throughout the country. ACLED indicated that violence against civilians was mainly directed at opposition supporters and civilians trying to flee the violence. However, this conflict has also seen an increased tendency for the opposition to target police officials or ruling party leaders, using unidentified armed groups as scapegoats (ACLED 2016).

Land system

On the other hand, Burundi appears to be less inclusive than Rwanda in terms of land policy, in terms of both ethnicity and gender. Regarding how to deal with land issues, Arusha Peace Agreement had created a clear outline for the land policy for newborn Burundi. Specifically, Article 8 of Chapter 1 of Protocol 4, Reconstruction and Development, discusses how to deal with land ownership issues, land conflicts, etc., including (a) the property rights of all men, women and children should be guaranteed; (b) all refugees must be able to recover their property, especially their land; and (c) if it proves impossible to recover, everyone with land rights must be given fair compensation and/or terms of compensation (United Nations 2000).

In practice, however, Burundi has encountered many difficulties and constraints in land management. First, land policies were difficult to implement and inconsistent. The Arusha Agreement stipulated that returnees would be given their original land or compensation, but many refugees who left Burundi due to the civil war or earlier needed proof of land ownership, making the land return more difficult. Land conflicts with current landowners are a common occurrence when refugees return. The new Commission Nationale Terres et autres Biens (CNTB), established in 2006 after the civil war, primarily aimed to resolve land conflicts. CNTB initially followed a land-sharing mechanism similar to Rwanda. However, former President Nkurunziza claimed this method would not be accepted and changed the split to one-third for the current owners and two-thirds for the returnees (Takeuchi 2014). This policy quickly displeased the current owners while failing to satisfy the returnees.

Secondly, Burundi does not focus enough on gender issues in its land policy as its neighbours do. Just as in Rwanda, under the original customary law, Burundian women could not inherit or hold title to land (Sabimbona 1998). Under colonial rule, land ownership was reinterpreted as private ownership, resulting in women’s exclusion from modern ownership and inheritance (Kohlhagen 2012). In the ongoing conflict, women’s access was further affected by repeated displacement, particularly because they may be unable to perform male roles, such as negotiating land acquisition rights that their displaced lives force them to assume. In addition, upon returning from displacement, they may find their spouse’s land occupied and inaccessible.

Burundi is not without its efforts. Women’s status had been improved in the legal sense. The 1993 amendments of the Code of the Person and the Family claimed that the husband is the head of the conjugal community, but granting the wife the right to jointly manage the family property when the husband is absent or prohibited from doing so (Equality Now 2021). However, women still had no rights in reality, as most men tended to delegate land affairs to their male relatives. To this day, Burundian law does not recognise women’s inheritance rights. As a result, unmarried women and widows faced significant difficulties in asserting their rights to their family land.

Political settlement

Since the establishment of the Republic of Burundi in 1966, the Tutsi have long been in a dominant position and have been constantly fighting against the Hutu, resulting in a severe inequality in the division of rights and interests between the Tutsi and Hutu, and increasingly intensified communal conflicts. Under the rule of three Tutsi leaders, Michel Micombero, Jean Baptiste Bagaza and Pierre Buyoya, relations between the two communities were marked by antagonism, hatred and hostility. Repeated inter-ethnic massacres in 1965, 1969, 1972, 1988 and 1991 put pressure on the country’s history, culminating in the civil war from 1993 to 2005 (Uvin 1999). The first attempt at democratic elections in 1993 brought Hutu President Melchior Ndadaye to power, but his assassination only 3 months later in an attempted coup d’état led by the Tutsis reflected a long history of mistrust and rupture between the two communities. There appears to be little hope for national reconciliation through democratic elections. The new Hutu president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, also crashed in 1994 while travelling in a particular plane with Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, igniting the Rwandan genocide and causing internal turmoil in Burundi. In August 2000, under the international community’s mediation, the warring parties in Burundi signed the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, which started the peace process. After unremitting efforts, CNDD-FDD won a landslide victory in the elections in 2005 and became the ruling party of Burundi, formally entering the political arena with the party’s chairman, Nkurunziza, elected President.

In 2005, under the Arusha Agreement, Burundi established a new Constitution, which adopts an ethnic power-sharing mechanism, sets quotas for ethnic groups in the inter-parliamentary assembly and prevents the recurrence of a situation where a single ethnic group has a monopoly on power, thus reversing Burundi’s former political exclusivity of ethnic groups (Constitute project 2005). In addition, the Political Parties Act stipulates that no more than 75% of the members of a political party may belong to the same ethnic group and that they may not be based on the exclusivity of ethnic identity (Nindorera 2012). Through the power-sharing mechanism, Burundi would establish a division in the institutional set-up to avoid the dominance of one party or ethnic group. In practice, however, the power-sharing mechanism has been frequently challenged as CNDD-FDD has gradually become the overwhelmingly powerful party in control of the situation in Burundi.

In the 2010 General Election, CNDD-FDD was accused of electoral fraud due to its overwhelmingly favourable communal election results. The opposition wanted to protest by absenting themselves from the presidential and parliamentary elections, which did not concern CNDD-FDD and won the general elections by a wide margin. This was followed by acts of reprisal against the opposition, which led to unrest in the country (Vandeginste 2011). Similarly, during the political turmoil of seeking a third term in 2015, the CNDD-FDD once again suppressed the opposition’s attempt to monopolise power and began to invoke communal inflammatory rhetoric to shift the focus through collaborative discourse, challenging the power-sharing mechanism by employing ethnically polarising tactics (Siegle 2015). The change in the status of CNDD-FDD disrupted the balance of power and established a one-party regime. It proved that communal power-sharing mechanisms are susceptible to the dominant party’s influence and are fragile and unstable.

Comparative discussion between Rwanda and Burundi

The discussion of holding power in political settlements can be linked to the outcomes of policymaking, thereby discussing the impact of the distribution of political power on development (Behuria et al. 2017). An intuitive summary of the distribution of political power between the two countries is that the RPF achieved institutional concentration of power early on by banning the opposition, and voices challenging its position could not worry about it. In contrast, the CNDD-FDD, constrained by the power-sharing mechanism and its ambitions for power, was unable to achieve a concentration of power as smoothly as the RPF did while contributing to political instability in Burundi at the same time (Table 1).

Table 1 Poverty incidence by geographic area and region (percentage) in Burundi and Rwanda in 2014
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While the term ‘good governance’ in this paper is intended to discuss how institutions are built, the NIEs at the root of the term lack a discussion of the distribution of political power. For this reason, including a discussion of political settlement helps to understand the source of the differences in institution-building between the two countries from the perspective of the distribution of political power, ultimately leading to differences in the outcome of their development (poverty).

As two countries that have just calmed their conflicts, how to continue to maintain security has become a top priority. As part of institutional reform, SSR is expected to face the security challenges of good governance in the country (Riley and Schulz 2016). Both Rwanda and Burundi have made efforts on SSR, but the results indicate a discrepancy. With both having SSR programmes and implementation goals, political power has become an essential factor influencing the construction of their security systems. The internal security challenges against the two countries are likely to come from two sources: the opposition and ethnic conflicts.

For the RPF, its internal security problems do not appear compelling, and apart from international criticism of the violent tactics, it uses to suppress dissenting voices (Human Rights Watch 2023b), and it does not currently face a security situation that requires concern. The suppression of dissenting voices and the absence of internal security challenges are attributable to the centralisation of holding power, which was accomplished in the early time. All powerful opposition parties were banned as early as 2003, and the multiparty system (including allowing opposition parties to exist and participate in politics) was designed to look more like political window dressing. Opposition members in exile abroad are also arrested upon their return to Rwanda, thus keeping the RPF unchallenged in power (Warner 2012). Opposition challenges are not enough for the RPF to fear or cause armed conflict, while ethnic conflicts cease to exist under the carefully crafted therapy of ethnic amnesia. In the absence of significant challenges to internal security, the smoothness of the SSR process help Rwanda restore security for more than decade. At the same time, due to the complete military victory of the RPF, it has also been a factor of security and political stability within its own country. The deployment of the military near the military’s native communities has helped to build a sense of local trust, and they are widely perceived as a hero for security at home and abroad rather than a violent institution to be feared (Kuehnel and Wilén 2018).

On the other hand, in addition to mistrust or rent-seeking behaviour by stakeholders in the security sector reform process, the security challenges within Burundi stem more from the conflict between CNDD-FDD and power-sharing mechanisms. The social unrest caused by former President Nkurunziza and the CNDD-FDD in 2010, 2015–2018 stemmed from conflicts and reprisals between them and opposition parties. The DDR process in the Burundian army did not transform all ex-combatants into the general labour force but retained some to become instruments of violence for the CNDD-FDD. After the 2010 election, the ruling party’s youth wing (Imbonerakure, de facto a Youth militia) was cultivated as a tool for the CNDD-FDD to reciprocate the opposition (The New Humanitarian 2015). Nkurunziza’s announcement in 2015 that he would seek a ‘third term’ was a severe breach of constitutional term limits and drew the ire of opposition factions within the ruling party and other opposition parties. In addition to the continued use of the Imbonerakure to repress and assassinate opposition elites, the partisan conflict has also been associated with ethnic conflict, which was described in ethno-ideologically oriented terms by articles such as ‘ethnic turn’, ‘ethnic enmities’ and a terrible awakening of ethnic hatreds’ (Sinalo 2022). The events of the 2018 constitutional amendment likewise reflect the increasingly apparent intention of the CNDD-FDD to monopolise political power, which conflicts with the purpose of the power-sharing mechanism and leads to the ideological and practical severance of domestic politics. On this basis, the domestic security situation has been more challenged by the CNDD-FDD’s desire for more power. This could also explain its distrust or reluctance to proceed with the SSR process. In this way, the differences in the security situation between the two countries can be understood from the security-related indices provided by The Institute for Economics & Peace and The Global Economy.com (Table 2).

Table 2 Security indexes of Rwanda and Burundi
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Suppose the discussion of security reflects the immediate results of the distribution of political power in the two countries. In that case, the discussion of the land system will reflect political power in action. The evolution of the land system that accompanied land reform is often recognised as institutional change (Ho 2005). From the perspective of NIEs, policymakers should consider institutional change in the context of maximising returns. In contrast, the two countries show a very different situation in terms of the land system. The RPF demonstrated its desire to curb the resurgence of ethnic conflict by abolishing ethnic identity cards in the wake of the genocide. Regarding land policy, the seemingly lenient distribution of land to refugees returning to the country was, in fact, a way of accommodating and calming the Rwandan population’s fear of reprisals over the past 30 years. At the same time, the gradual clarification of rival parties has allowed the RPF to develop a more complete and long-term land policy without fear of changes in long-term policy due to rotation in government (Boston 2017). The centralisation of power in the RPF has given space and possibility for developing a long-term system such as the land system, which, through land surveys carried out over nearly a decade, can now provide a clear picture of the country’s land ownership. A relatively inclusive and clear land policy has also reduced transaction costs and enabled development.

For Burundi, the conflict between power-sharing mechanisms and CNDD-FDD’s desire for more power also cuts into land policy. As a result of the power-sharing mechanism, the CNDD-FDD is not able to divide Tutsi and Hutu land equally with the same leniency as in Rwanda but needs to take into account quotas for different ethnic groups, which makes both the original and the returnees dissatisfied. Secondly, CNDD-FDD has been in a power struggle, but due to the sharing mechanism, it cannot achieve power centralisation like RPF. While busy suppressing and retaliating against the opposition parties, it is difficult for them to take into account the interests of different groups (women) in the land or to carry out a nationwide land survey similar to that of the RPF, even though the area of land in the two countries is almost the same. The land system, as one of the most critical institutions in the two agricultural countries, should be correctly formulated and implemented responds to the expectation of institution optimisation in the notion of ‘good governance’. However, due to the difference in political power between the two countries, the RPF can carry out nationwide land surveys with inclusive and clear land policies through centralised power. The CNDD-FDD, on the other hand, has lost sufficient interest in the land system through the clashed between power-sharing mechanisms and its ambitions. In terms of ‘good governance’, the former has to do a better job of building and optimising the institution than the latter, taking into account the maximisation of benefits, while in reality reflecting the difference in the composition of political power between the two countries.

The gap between political settlement in the two countries can be seen from two perspectives: security and the land system. Security can be a direct result of their political power-sharing, with the RPF centralising power in the institution that does not allow for effective opposition in the country. The CNDD-FDD, on the other hand, struggles with the power-sharing mechanism, giving the opposition space to ‘mess up’ while also providing the former violent repression and the latter the possibility of armed resistance. On the other hand, the land system can be seen as a manifestation of the ability to maximise the benefits of institution-building under the distribution of political power or whether there is the capacity to do so. The most significant difference between the RPF and the CNDD-FDD is that the former has gained more holding power without powerful opposition, whereas the latter is very constrained. In the long term, the RPF is more energised to consider maximising gains in the institution. In contrast, CNDD-FDD may still need to address the problem of opposition before anything else. This development gap can also be visualised in Fig. 5, where the PPP indices of the two countries have been expanding over the past 20 years, and the different abilities of the two countries to lift themselves out of poverty are also mapped.

Fig. 5
figure 5

PPP from 2005 to 2019 of Rwanda and Burundi. Source: World Bank (2023)

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Conclusion

This paper argues that despite many problems with the widely used ‘good governance’ framework, it is still worthwhile for developing countries to refer to it as a developmental concept for institution building in the hope of reducing transaction costs. This paper discusses political settlement and general development performance with a critique and understanding of good governance. Rwanda and Burundi, two historically similar countries, have shown different development results related to their political power distribution. Through analysis, this paper argues that the RPF has gradually centralised power through various means before and after formally gaining power and has not been subjected to many challenges to its rule over the past 20 years. CNDD-FDD, on the other hand, has the same ambition to increase its holding power in the hope of getting a better grip on Burundi. However, due to the power-sharing mechanism, it cannot smoothly develop its power like RPF, and it needs to struggle for power with the opposition under the mechanism. The conflict with the opposition has led to the fact that many development policies in Burundi have not been carried out as smoothly as in Rwanda or that policies have not been considered to maximise the benefits but only improve them.

When discussing the two selected elements of security and land system, one can also tell the difference brought by the different political settlements, and CNDD-FDD still need to establish their violent organisations to suppress the opposition and cause armed conflict. On the other hand, the RPF can use its military forces more to enhance its reputation at home and abroad, creating a stark difference. The land system, moreover, results from its political power distribution. The CNDD-FDD still needs to consider power struggles with the opposition or is affected by power-sharing mechanisms and cannot carry out more inclusive or comprehensive reforms or even nationwide land surveying, as is possible in the case of the RPF.

The two countries are influenced by the distribution of political power in the practice of the concept of ‘good governance’, resulting in differences in development policies, thus leading to differences in institution building, which affects the maximisation of benefits or the reduction of transaction costs as emphasised by the NIEs, after which the link with poverty is more intuitive. Based on the discussion of political settlement and institution building, this paper argues that ‘good governance’ is still viable, as it is still essentially a tool for institution building. However, it needs to be used in a way that considers the local context, mainly how political power is distributed and the results of that distribution, as it will largely influence the outcome of institution building, development and operation.