Edalina Rodrigues Sanches

Edalina Rodrigues Sanches is a Guest Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Policy, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, ISCTE-IUL, and an Assistant Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. Her research centers on democratization, political institutions, party systems, and representation, with a regional focus on Africa.

• PhD in Political Science, University of Lisbon (2014)
• Postgraduate Degree in Data Analysis in Social Sciences, ISCTE-IUL (2010)
• Master’s in Comparative Politics, University of Lisbon (2008)
• Bachelor’s in Sociology, NOVA University of Lisbon (2002)

Her research interests include democratization, party system institutionalization, legislative behavior, constituency service, popular protest, and hybrid regimes, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. She employs comparative and qualitative methodologies, often focusing on small island states like Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Her recent publications analyze gender and parliamentary questions, autocratic survival in Equatorial Guinea, civil society in Mozambique’s extractive sector, and party system stability in post-democratic transitions. She authored Party Systems in Young Democracies (Routledge, 2018) and co-edited Popular Protest, Political Opportunities, and Change in Africa (Routledge, 2022). She leads the research project Project HOME, examining parliamentary activity and party-citizen connections in Africa.

• Regular contributor to Africaye blog and Presidential Power
• Active in public scholarship and policy-relevant research

She supervises students and contributes to academic discourse through teaching and publications, though no specific advisees are listed. She has no explicitly mentioned scientific awards, but her work is widely cited across African and comparative politics.