ABOUT
HOME is a three-year project funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology that investigates the connections between the members of parliament (MPs) and their constituencies. It charts MPs’ behaviour in the district and in the parliament, over four central research questions:
- How do MPs behave in their home constituency?
- How do MPs use the parliamentary floor to cater to districts’ interests?
- How are recruitment and post-assignment in parliament used to connect with constituencies?
- Which factors explain differences in constituency-focus?
These questions are investigated in the context of a Small-N comparative study including Ghana, Namibia and South Africa. These are three of the most established democracies in Africa, with remarkable records of free and fair elections and highly institutionalized party systems. However, they display important institutional and contextual differences that make the empirical analysis of constituency service relevant. First, differentials in the electoral institutions, systems of govern and parliamentary structures allow us to leverage institutional explanations for cross-country variation in constituency service. Second, a closer look at each case study helps clarify the influence of districts’ characteristics, party organizations and individual-level factors on constituency service.
To answer the questions raised, the project applies an ambitious mixed methods research strategy that combines different types of quantitative (surveys, MPs’ biographies, parliamentary activity) and qualitative (documental research, interviews) types of data.
PEOPLE
Coordination
Research team
Advisory board
Publications
2024
Journal Articles
- Sanches, E.R., Kartalis, Y. & Siachiwena, H. (in press), Explaining party switching in an institutionalized party system: The case of South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies.
- Sá, A.S. & Kilumbo, O. (in press), UNITA’s post-war parliamentary elite: from a wartime defeat to a nationwide party in Angola. Journal of Southern African Studies.
- Conduto, J. Dulani, B. and Fisher, C. (in press) Elite party formation amidst fragmentation: the case of Joyce Banda’s People’s Party in Malawi´, Journal of Southern African Studies.
- Espírito-Santo, A., Sanches, E.R., Kartalis, Y. (2024), Gender, Intraparty Competition, and the Substantive Focus of Parliamentary Questions in South Africa, Politics and Governance, Vol. 16. https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/8326
- Sanches, E. R., Conduto, J., Marinha, A., & Espírito-Santo, A. (2024). What do we mean when we talk about constituency service? A scoping literature review of four decades of research. Political Research Exchange, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2024.237765
2021
Book chapters
Sanches, E. R. & Dias, António (2021) Ghana: The Politics of Legislative Debates in a Hybrid Presidential Regime. In H. Bäck, M. Debus, & J. M. Fernandes (eds.), The Politics of Legislative Debate Around the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 399-419.
DATA
MPs Biographic
Datasets
Country-level longitudinal datasets featuring biographic background data of legislators in Ghana (since 1991), Namibia (since 1989) and South Africa (since 2014). The data collected includes age, gender, seniority, localness, committee experience, districts’ sociodemographic characteristics, among others (in progress).
Parliamentary
Activity Datasets
Country-level datasets containing parliamentary speeches and questions, and their constituency focus over time. The data will include at least two of the case studies (South Africa and Ghana), for over twenty years (in progress).
Elite
Surveys
Online surveys will be conducted with legislators in Ghana, Namibia and South Africa, to understand how they allocate their time, what exactly do they do in their home constituency, and whether constituency service matters for their political careers and, most importantly, to the citizens (in progress).
