Explaining Issue Representation in Africa

A comparison of legislator and citizen preferences across 17 African countries with regard to priority issues for government action reveals a surprisingly strong degree of congruence (Clayton, Joseffson, Mattes and Mozaffar 2019). In this paper, we link data from the African Legislatures Project and Afrobarometer to investigate the degree of representation in Africa at both the country and constituency level, and then explain differences in issue congruence with respect to country level factors (e,g. the type of electoral system) and legislator level factors (e.g. the frequency of MP travel to the district, the type of MP interaction with ordinary citizens, and whether MPs represent governing or opposition parties) to better understand how MPs learn about citizen preferences.