Edalina Sanches

University of Lisbon | UL · Institute of Social Sciences

Institutionalised party systems are said to foster stronger party allegiances and fewer switches. However, this expectation is called into question when we observe the case of South Africa. Despite being characterised by a highly institutionalised dominant party system as well as party-centred electoral and candidate selection rules, South Africa h...

Extant research suggests that women ask more parliamentary questions (PQs) on soft policy domains while their male peers focus on hard domains, which are arguably more relevant. This study contributes to this body of research by examining how electoral incentives shape intraparty politics, and specifically the substantive focus of PQs. It argues th...

Constituency service is a crucial concept for understanding the nature and intensity of the links between representatives and their constituents. However, studies have been inconsistent about the meaning of constituency service, its causes and consequences, justifying a systematic analysis of where we stand in this field of studies. This article co...

What drives MPs' constituency focus in party‐centered systems? Party‐centered systems are expected to offer fewer incentives for constituency‐focused behavior as it is parties rather than candidates that primarily drive competition. However, MPs in these systems may find good reason to cater to constituents’ interests as it allows them to attain mu...

Análise Social: 60 Anos

The Oxford Handbook of Portuguese Politics brings together the best scholars in the field offering an unrivalled coverage of the politics (broadly defined) of the country over the past 50 years. The Handbook includes eight sections. First, we look at the ‘Past and Present’ by making an overview of Portuguese political developments since democratiza...

On 12 August, Zambia held its 7th general elections since the introduction of multiparty politics in 1991. Hakainde Hichilema and his United Party for National Development (UPND) won the presidential and parliamentary elections, lending a sounding defeat to the incumbent President Edgar Lungu from the Patriotic Front (PF). Ahead of the polls, the E...

Candidate selection is one of the most important tasks performed by political parties in a democracy, and all the more so in closed-list proportional representation (CLPR) systems such as the one in Portugal. The choice of which individual politicians are included in the party lists and their chances of being elected rests in the hands of parties,...

This article introduces the new Party Ethics Self-Regulation database, covering 21 indicators on ethics self-regulation organised into three categories (norms, oversight and enforcement) across 200 political parties of 25 countries available in 2020. Internal self-regulatory efforts developed by political parties have been insufficiently addressed...

In 2012 the Mozambican government announced the revision of the mining and petroleum laws in consultation with civil society organizations (CSOs). This followed the discovery of world class gas reserves in the Rovuma Basin, and growing demands for transparency, fair sharing of revenues and protection of national interests, from all quadrants. Given...

On 18 April 2021 Cabo Verde held its seventh parliamentary elections since democratic transition in the early 1990s. Parliamentary elections take place every five years and not only meet high quality standards but promote peaceful alternation of power between major parties that generally accept the rules of the game (Sanches 2020a; Sanches et al. 2...

This chapter investigates the politics of parliamentary debates in Ghana, a country that combines a hybrid presidential regime with a candidate-centered electoral system. Although these features place Ghana as a typical case in which parliamentary rules grant more leeway to individual MPs, our analysis reveals a more complex scenario that defies co...

We introduce a dataset on Equatorial Guinea’s cabinet composition between 1994, after the reintroduction of multipartyism, and 2020. The dataset contains information on the names of cabinet members, portfolios, position in the cabinet, number of times a politician has been appointed to cabinet, party membership, ethnicity, and family ties with the...

Small island states are much more likely to have democratic regimes than large continental states. This trend also holds across Africa, where the five island states with populations of 1.5 million or less are all rated at least “partly free” by Freedom House. In this article we explore what it is about being a small island state that might explain...

O primeiro plano de ação de Cabo Verde acompanha medidas governativas recentes no sentido de aumentar o acesso dos cidadãos à informação e de promover a transparência e a prestação de contas. Tais medidas incluem a criação de novas instituições governamentais ou mesmo a disponibilização pública de informação orçamental. Cabo Verde é um dos países a...

Cabo Verde’s first OGP action plan follows recent measures to increase citizens’ access to information and promote transparency and accountability. This includes the creation of new government institutions and the publication of budget information. Cabo Verde is one of Africa’s best performing countries in quality of democracy and governance. While...

Equatorial Guinea is not only one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes but also a striking case of regime and leader survival. This small, oil-rich state and personalist regime defies conventional wisdom because it is both far more resilient and faces far fewer threats from within the regime and from opposition political parties than other res...

The recent economic crisis has created momentum for party system change in most European democracies. While Portugal has shown more predictable patterns of interparty competition, since the 2015 elections it has experienced incremental changes in the electoral, parliamentary and governing arenas. This study explores several dimensions of the Portug...

Research on political change in Africa suggests that it has powerful domestic sources (Bratton and van de Walle, 1997 ). In the late 1980s, set against a backdrop of severe economic and political crisis, incumbent authoritarian parties in Africa faced intense and persistent popular protests to change the outgoing regimes and to recognise fundamenta...

The effect of decentralization on democratization is double-edged. On the one hand, decentralization can foster participation, representation, and accountability; on the other, it can lead to parochial and more polarized politics, capture of power by local elites, subnational income disparities, and the development of local clientelistic networks (...

This year saw a continuation of the trend of democratic erosion in the country. The Patriotic Front (PF) government, headed by President Edgar Lungu, used selected laws and regulations to demobilise critical voices and institutions. The Constitution Amendment Bill aroused fierce contestation, with several sections of civil society claiming that it...

O presente policy brief procura contribuir para o debate crescente sobre o processo de democratização em Angola. Em concreto, apresentamos os resultados do Índice da Qualidade da Democracia (IQD) que foi recentemente implementado em Angola. O IQD é um projeto do Observatório da Qualidade da Democracia do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidad...

It is not easy to understand why some African party systems manage to stabilise while others remain fluid. This article argues that institutional choices made during democratic transition impact the likelihood of party system stabilisation. The experiences of Cabo Verde, Comoros, São Tomé and Príncipe and Seychelles are compared; despite sharing ma...

The former Portuguese colonies of Cabo Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe are small African island states with fairly well-functioning democracies, but they represent different sides of the ‘small is beautiful’ debate. This chapter explores how and why democracy has been more consensual and stable in Cabo Verde and more conflict-prone and unstable in...

Jaimie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle’s Electoral Politics in Africa offers unique insights into the complex relationship between elections, democracy, and change (or lack thereof) in Africa. The authors claim that electoral politics in Africa since 1990 have been marked essentially by political continuity—for both good and bad. Multiparty election...

Jaimie Bleck and Nicholas Van de Walle. Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990: Continuity and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. xi + 331 pp. List of Tables. List of Figures. References. Index. $29.99. Paper. ISBN: 9781316612477. - Edalina Rodrigues Sanches

Does having more regular elections improve democratic performance in Africa? And have elections transformed the patterns of alternation in government? To answer these questions, two analyses are conducted drawing on an original dataset of 179 elections in 27 African countries, from the founding multiparty elections until 2019. The first tests the e...

Party systems are expected to grow and mature with time; however, the case of Madagascar is one of high fluidity: parties and leaders rise and fall from one election to the next and there is a low entry cost for new contenders. This study explores the role of authoritarian legacies and elites’ efforts to skew the playing field as key factors for un...

Some thirty years ago, Benin’s Conférence des Forces Vives de la Nation paved the way for the end of Mathieu Kérékou rule and inaugurated a new democratic order in country (Banégas, 1995; Bratton & van de Walle, 1997). The successful transition in Benin pioneered the wave of democratisation in Africa and the demise of formal one-party rule in most...

Some thirty years ago, Benin’s Conférence des Forces Vives de la Nation paved the way for the end of Mathieu Kérékou rule and inaugurated a new democratic order in country (Banégas, 1995; Bratton & van de Walle, 1997). The successful transition in Benin pioneered the wave of democratisation in Africa and the demise of formal one-party rule in most...

Neste estudo apresentamos os resultados do Índice da Qualidade da Democracia (IQD) que foi recentemente implementado em Cabo Verde. O IQD é um projeto liderado pelo Observatório da Qualidade da Democracia do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa (www.oqd.ics.ulisboa.pt), com o objetivo de monitorizar a saúde da democracia dos Esta...

South–South relations have regained widespread interest in recent years, together with increasingly visible stances on international stages. Brazil’s interactions with the African continent, in particular, came to epitomise such a perception while sustaining an expectation of mutual alignment in several global issues. However, these assumptions sti...

This report reviews and analyses party financing regulation in 13 African countries, drawing on an in depth scrutiny of party legislation and personal interviews1 with representatives of nine different political parties2 in more than half of those countries (i.e. Angola, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda). It examines the compl...

Throughout the world, the sons and daughters of many state leaders attract media attention for their exploits. Like other famous children of politicians, Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of José Eduardo dos Santos, the former president of Angola (1979-2017), is the object of much media scrutiny regarding her investments and lavish spending habits. W...

Throughout the world, the sons and daughters of many state leaders attract media attention for their exploits. Like other famous children of politicians, Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of José Eduardo dos Santos, the former president of Angola (1979-2017), is the object of much media scrutiny regarding her investments and lavish spending habits. W...

This article investigates the role of key individual-level factors, namely expertise, seniority and preferences in women’s assignments to legislative committees. It focuses on Portugal and draws on biographical data on MPs in five elections until 2009 and interviews with 20 legislators in 2014. The results show that female and male MPs have a simil...

Review of Democracy in Small States. Persisting Against All Odds by Jack Corbett and Wouter Veenendaal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, in Small States & Territories, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 Jack Corbett and Wouter Veenendaal's book has two general and interconnected questions at its core: 1) Why are small states more democratic than large ones? and 2...

Zambia became increasingly authoritarian under Patriotic Front (PF) President Edgar Lungu, who had been elected in a tightly contested presidential election in 2016. The runner-up, the United Party for National Development (UPND), engaged in a series of actions to challenge the validity of the results. The UPND saw 48 of its legislators suspended f...

Institutionalization has become a paramount concept to compare party systems in regions spanned by the third wave of democratization. Based on raw electoral data from 30 sub-Saharan African countries observed between 1966 and 2016, this text explores the causes and mechanisms of Party System Institutionalization (PSI) and its relationship with the...

Parties' motivation to include locals depends on the characteristics of the electoral system. This article analyzes where on the lists parties choose to position locals under closed-list proportional representation systems. Furthermore, it also investigates how that choice varies depending on two key district factors, namely district magnitude and...

Dentro de uma literatura que defende que as instituições políticas são relevantes para a consolidação e a estabilidade democráticas é frequente atribuir-se um papel central às formas de governo. Embora seja consensual que as constituições parlamentares, semipresidenciais e presidenciais têm efeitos desiguais no desempenho da democracia, os estudos...

No fim do século XX um conjunto de estudos sobre os processos de democratização na Europa do Sul apontavam para três resultados principais (Diamandouros e Gunther 2001b; Gunther, Diamandouros e Puhle 1995; Pridham 1990a e 1990b; Pridham e Lewis 1996). Em primeiro lugar, que apesar das diferentes vias e sequências de transição, em finais dos anos 80...

Zambia adopted a new constitution. General elections were held. Incumbent president Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front (PF) polled over the 50% needed for re-election but the results were challenged by the runner-up Hakainde Hichilema, candidate of the United Party for National Development (UPND). Post-electoral violence escalated in UPND stronghol...

Focusing on the Portuguese case, this article aims to examine how members evaluate items of intra-party democracy and the ways in which their evaluations vary significantly across parties and key individual-level factors. It uses data from online surveys conducted in 2014 to grassroots members of three left-wing parties that differ in their organis...

Edgar Lungu of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) won the presidential by-elections by one of the narrowest margins ever against the runner-up, Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND). The elections were deemed free and fair, but levels of turnout reached a record low. Inonge Wina became the first female vice president a...

Building on the theoretical proposition that congruence is as much a property to be measured in authoritarian regimes as it is in democratic regimes, the aim of this article is to understand the phenomenon of ideological and political congruence in Angola. To carry out this analysis, we rely on two original surveys, conducted in 2012 with members o...

Cabeças de lista às eleições legislativas portuguesas: laços locais ou visibilidade nacional? Este artigo investiga em que medida as características pessoais dos cabeças de lista diferem das dos outros candidatos, partindo de uma base de dados original sobre os candidatos à Assembleia da República, em cinco eleições legislativas entre 1983-2009. Os...

Resumo: Cabo Verde e São Tomé Príncipe apresentam semelhanças e diferenças que os tornam particularmente comparáveis. São dois arquipélagos com experiências de (des)colonização mais ou menos semelhantes e que acolhem sociedades crioulas, onde as diferenças de natureza étnica, religiosa ou territorial são muito ténues. No início dos anos 1990 fizer...

Satisfaction with democracy has been steadily decreasing in Portugal since the beginning of this century reaching its lowest level according to recent opinion polls. This article tests the leverage of demand-side and supply-side accounts to explain differentials in public satisfaction with democracy. Through a OLS regression analysis that draws on...

This article examines the extent to which personal characteristics of heads of lists differ from those of all other candidates. It draws upon an original dataset on the candidates to the Portuguese Parliament in five parliamentary elections between 1983 and 2009. The results reveal that candidates with public visibility - famous politicians, public...

Neste segundo relatório de dados recolhidos pela Bússola Eleitoral comparam-­‐se as atitudes dos inquiridos em relação à questão da Austeridade com os posicionamentos dos principais partidos portugueses. Pretende-­‐se compreender em que medida é que as posições dos partidos e dos seus eleitorados são congruentes. Se forem, podemos aferir que existe...

Mais de vinte anos após o início da vaga de democratizações em África, os sistemas de partido dominante constituem o modelo mais comum encontrado na região Subsaariana. Atualmente, contam-se duas dezenas de países com sistemas de partido dominante em que os partidos que assumiram o governo no momento da independência ou que lideraram os processos d...

O presente capítulo parte do conceito de twin tolerations, seminalmente proposto por Alfred Stepan (2000) para discutir as relações entre religião e democratização no contexto dos países da chamada “Africa Lusófona”. Este conceito é relevante; em primeiro lugar porque chama a atenção para a necessidade de existir um espaço vital, de tolerância mutu...

Zambia celebrated its golden jubilee on 24 October. Incumbent President Michael Sata, who did not attend the celebrations, died shortly afterwards after a period of failing health. Infighting escalated in the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) over leadership issues. Secretary General Edgar Lungu was chosen as the PF candidate for the 2015 presidential el...

Até ao dia 15 de Setembro, 34 436 cidadãos portugueses utilizaram a Bússola Eleitoral 2015 (www.bussolaeleitoral.pt), exprimindo uma opinião em relação aos 30 temas seleccionados como relevantes para mapear o posicionamento político de cidadãos e partidos políticos neste período de campanha eleitoral. De entre estes quase 35 mil utilizadores, cerca...

As eleições legislativas de 17 de março de 2002 foram especiais em pelo menos dois aspetos. Por um lado, o país voltava a enfrentar um cenário de eleições antecipadas, o que não acontecia desde que o Partido Social Democrata (PSD) de Cavaco Silva foi eleito em 1987, com maioria absoluta. Por outro lado, estas eleições signifcaram o retorno dos gove...

The degree of institutionalization has become a paramount criterion to classify Third Wave party systems. Yet, in as much as institutionalization has attracted interest, it has also been surrounded by few conceptual challenges regarding measurement and scope. Moreover, there remain relatively open questions about the sources and mechanisms of varyi...

President Michael Sata’s cabinet faced important challenges throughout the year. Domestic politics saw six rounds of by-elections, which, apart from incurring significant financial costs, tipped the balance of power in favour of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF). At the end of the year, the PF held 51% of the seats in the National Assembly (10 more t...

Building on Joseph Nye's concept of soft power, this paper conducts a case study analysis on the role and relevance of language in the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP). This organization was built on the shared history and language of its eight member states – Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal...

In office since 2011, Michael Sata’s cabinet faced important challenges throughout 2013. The domestic political sphere was hallmarked by the realisation of six rounds of by-elections. Beyond significant financial costs, these elections tipped the power balance in favour of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF). At the end of the year, the PF held 51% of...

O governo é a instituição política mais importante no seio das democracias contemporâneas. Ele define a sua própria organização e funcionamento, estabelece e executa as linhas gerais das políticas do Estado, e regula e controla a administração pública em todo o território nacional. Mas quem controla o governo? De que modo e em que medida essa vigil...

Este artigo analisa a importância dos partidos e dos sistemas de partidos para o estudo dos processos de democratização no contexto da "Terceira Vaga". Com base na grelha de análise de Mainwaring (1999), descrevemos características básicas do sistema de partidos cabo-verdiano desde a transição para a democracia. Os resultados demonstram que um dos...

"Party Personnel Dataset: Portugal" is an origina dataset on the candidates to the Portuguese Parliament in five parliamentary elections: 1983, 1995, 2002, 2005 and 2009. The data was collected under the auspices of the US NSF-funded project, "Collaborative Research: Electoral Systems and Party Personnel: The Consequences of Reform and Non-Reform",...

In the study of Latin American countries Mainwaring (1998) provided a model to measure the level of party system institutionalization and explored the impact of different degrees of institutionalization on democratic consolidation. In the first part of this article, we measure the levels of party system institutionalization in the Lusophone African...

Resumo: A literatura sobre os processos de mudança política nas cinco ex-colónias portuguesas em África é consensual em destacar o carácter distintivo dos casos cabo-verdiano e santomense (Chabal 2002; Seibert 2002; Meyens 2002; Cahen 1991, entre outros). Dimensões endógenas nomeadamente, o legado colonial (sem guerra armada), o tipo de transição p...

This paper addresses the literature on parties and party systems in the Third Wave African democracies. It aims at: 1) describing the environment in which parties have emerged and; 2) identifying the components of interparty competition. From the 90s onwards several African countries adopted democratic institutions in result of both domestic (e.g....

This article analyses the nature of Portuguese political parties' attitudes towards Europe. Three major European dimensions are focused upon: identity, representation and scope of governance. Their consistency over time and their relevance for party competition are analysed, drawing on the INTUNE Euromanifesto Dataset. We observe that behind the Po...

Key Points The incumbent Socialist Party (PS) suffered a very heavy electoral loss (down 18%) compared to the last national Parliament (2005) and the last European Elections (2004). This is especially significant because of the upcoming national parliamentary elections to be held in October this year. The vote for the extreme left parties amounted...

This chapter analyses the relationship between welfare state performance (namely in the lesser-studied subfields of health and education) and trust in political institutions in Portugal and Spain at three key moments: before the financial crisis (2008), during its peak (2012), and after the end of the foreign aid programmes (2014): a full-fledged b...