The QUALREP project aims to produce a theoretically-driven analysis of the quality of women’s representation, attentive to intersectional and ideological diversity and with concern for the most marginalised.In a time when achieving women’s equal political participation and representation is formally recognized as a priority under commitments such as the UN SDGs and the EU Gender Equality Strategy, representative democracy continues to fail in the delivery of political equality for all women, in particular marginalised and minoritised women.This “poverty of representation” experienced by minority women across democracies, whose voices, interests and experiences are excluded from policy and debate is heightened in periods of natural and human-made crises and changes, and particularly in the face of anti-democratic backsliding and the rise of populist, anti-gender movements.QUALREP addresses this urgent need for renewed research on women’s political representation by investigating the institutional features which incentivize better representation and enhance connection, legitimacy and positive symbolism between women and their representatives and representative institutions.Through a comparative empirical analysis across five European nations — Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and the UK — QUALREP is committed to produce recommendations for policy-influencing and work with stakeholders to ensure their impact, thus contributing to contemporary debates on democracy’s fragility, inequality, and the need for institutional redesign to address systemic injustices.By advancing a theoretically sophisticated, intersectional, and empirically grounded understanding of women’s political representation, QUALREP makes the case that through improving the representation of all women, the wider health of representative democracy is supported in the face of its contemporary existential challenges.

The link between representatives and constituencies is a vital part of the political life in every democracy. In most countries citizens’ votes are clustered in electoral districts, and political representatives are to varying degrees accountable to the districts (constituencies) that elected them. So, 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 are some of the questions that animate the project HOME. The analysis unfolds in the context of a Small-N comparative study including Ghana and South Africa. These are two of the most established democracies in Africa, with remarkable records of free and fair elections and highly institutionalized party systems. However, they have important institutional and contextual differences that make the empirical analysis of constituency service relevant. 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) data to answer the research questions and test different set of hypotheses. 

Roughly until the 2008 international financial and economic crisis and the sovereign debt crisis and austerity policies that followed, scholars studying the Southern European democracies (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) either focused on democratic consolidation or on the quality of democracy (see, for example, Morlino 1998; Gunter, Diamandouros and Phule 1995). However, the Southern European democracies have been experiencing profound changes since the emergence of the global economic and financial crises. As Matthijs (2014) noted, ‘there is already ample evidence that the strength of liberal democracy in Southern Europe has diminished since 2010, as seen in a weakening of civil and political rights, the rule of law and the functioning of government’. Clearly, there are significant changes in the functioning of contemporary democracies, especially those that haveendured painful austerity policies.The aim of this project is to examine these changes by analysing the case of Portugal, one of the countries affected most severely by the crisis, from both a longitudinal and a comparative perspective. Although it is still too early to definitely assess the impact of the economic crisis on the evolution of contemporary democracies, it is clear there are different responses to these external challenges and distinct trajectories of adaptation. Portugal can be considered a good example of one of the most important difficulties many contemporary democracies must face: the people’s loss of faith in the ability of democratic institutions — particularly legislatures, parties and the political elite — to solve problems and realise collective goals. We believe that by revisiting the concept of ‘democratic consolidation’ and by exploring aspects of a possible process of ‘democratic deconsolidation’ we can shed light on some of the changes recently experienced in European countries since the2008 crisis. The use of this concept here is not related to the consensus on the ‘rules of...

This project has two main objectives:1)    Developing research projects aimed at comparing Portugal and Brazil's political systems. This includes the study of their political institutions, of the political attitudes and behaviors of their masses, and of the nexus between representatives and voters). These projects will both produce new data and make use of existing ones.2)    Promote academic training of graduate students (Masters and Doctoral students) of both ISCTE-IUL and IPOL-UnB by having them spend some time at both institutions. This exchange will allow graduate students to do short courses at either institution and receive advising from professor of ISCTE-IUL and IPOL-UnB. This project also promotes short visits of faculty at both institutions to present research results and provide specific graduate training.