tema de dissertação:
Political Development and party system institutionalisation trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: 1990-2011

orientadores:
Marina Costa Lobo (ICS/UL)
Gerhard Seibert (CEA-ISCTE/IUL)
Ingrid Van Biezen (Institute of Political Science - University of Leiden)

Based on a multi-method research design this thesis will first explain the level of party system institutionalisation applying a pooled time series cross section analysis to a subset of countries from Sub-Saharan Africa. Then case studies will be conducted in order to gain concrete meaning on why divergent political patterns emerge.

tema de dissertação:
Societal requisites for democratic consolidation: Democratic dimensions of political culture in Russia

orientador:
Prof. Dr. António Costa Pinto


Building on established theories of democratic consolidation and quality, as well as of political culture, the current research project aims to define and analyze those elements of political culture in Russia that can be regarded as a basis and, eventually, a trigger for a future political (democratic) consolidation.

dissertation theme:
Legislative Behavior as Government’s Strategy: Lessons from the Portuguese Case

supervisors:
Professora Doutora Nina Wiesehomeier (ICS - UL)
Professora Doutora Rebecca Morton (Department of Politics/New York University)
Professor Doutor António Marques Bessa (ISCSP-UTL)

A classical assumption in political science is that once governments are in office they want to stay in power. However, this is only possible if they gain enough votes. Usually, executives make Public Policies (PPs) consistent with their constituents preferences. Governments tend to perpetrate this PPs formally using Law-Decrees and Law Proposals. Having this governmental strategy into consideration, I will analyse executives' legislative behavior, using a formal model and new data at the Portuguese level (1982-2009).