Short Abstract

This panel focuses on the processes and quality of political representation in Africa and how it relates to democracy/autocracy. It welcomes research that investigates the multiple dimensions of representation, by centring on politicians’ and citizens’ views, preferences and political behaviour.

Long Abstract

This panel looks at the processes and quality of political representation in Africa from both the supply (politicians) and the demand-side (citizens). Rather than equating political representation with clientelism and identity politics as often is the case in Africa, the panel calls for more nuanced views that take into account how politicians blend formal and informal strategies to generate responsiveness and how citizens evaluate politicians’ performance. On the supply-side, it seeks to explore politicians’ repertoire of political representation and variations that may occur due to their differences in terms of gender, age, expertise or seniority. On the demand-side it intends to give voice to citizens' views/preferences, and to investigate whether politicians’ style of representation affects citizens’ political behaviour. We invite papers addressing the following – and related – questions: How do politicians’ descriptive characteristics and substantive preferences compare to those of the general population? What are the main obstacles for citizens to hold politicians accountable? Which strategies do citizens use to connect to representatives and vice versa? What are politicians’ representational priorities? How do they trade-off between tasks? Does the style/quality of representation drive citizens’ attitudes towards democracy and political engagement? This panel is open to contributions using different methodological approaches (single or cross-country designs, qualitative and quantitative data) and innovative theoretical/analytical frameworks. It aims to advance discussions on political representation in Africa in a way that complicates the dominant narrative that political representation is essentially informal and instrumental and for that reason less democratic and devoid of substantive meaning.

Propose paper