º£½ÇÂÛ̳

Publications

, Peeraullee Suhaylah, Visser Rehan

Afrobarometer Policy Paper Afrobarometer Policy Paper, No. 106 (2026)

(2026)

, Krönke Matthias, Mozaffar Shaheen

Conference on Elections and Parties in Latin America and Africa (2026)

Kroenke Matthias, Lockwood Sarah J,

De Gruyter Handbook of Political Parties in the Global South (2026) (2026)

Krönke Matthias, , Lockwood Sarah J

Elgar Encyclopedia of African Politics (2026) (2026)

, Ofusu George, Osae-Kwapong John, Cheeseman Nic

(2025)

Research Interests

I work on issues of democratization primarily through the tools of survey research but also employ other methods of institutional analysis. I am co-founder of, and Senior Adviser to Afrobarometer, a regular survey of public opinion in 35 African countries (www.afrobarometer.org). I am also co-founder and co-Principal Investigator of the African Legislatures Project, a study of legislatures and legislators in 17 countries. Finally, I am the founder and Principal Investigator of the South African National Election Study, a longitudinal series of post-election surveys dating back to South AFrica's first democratic election of 1994 (www.cssr.uct.ac.za/daru/sanes).  These studies are also carried out in association with the Comparative National Elections Project, and Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project.

Professional Activities

Recipient

15/9/2026

Participant

5/6/2026

Peer reviewer

5/4/2026

Peer reviewer

5/4/2026

Peer reviewer

12/1/2026

Peer reviewer

26/11/2025

Projects

Scotto, Thomas (Principal Investigator) Mattes, Robert (Co-investigator) Greenwood-Hau, Joe (Co-investigator)

This PhD project investigates a critical, yet often overlooked, assumption underpinning survey research: that respondents are uniformly attentive, engaged, and willing to provide meaningful responses. Across the world, surveys inform public policy, democratic debate, academic research, and organisational decision making. However, variation in respondent effort — including inattentiveness or differential engagement across social groups — can introduce bias and affect the validity of inferences about public attitudes and behaviour. This studentship will develop advanced quantitative methods to model and account for respondent effort, improve measurement quality, and assess how engagement varies across international and youth-focused survey contexts. Drawing on surveys from diverse settings, the research will enhance understanding of inclusion and representativeness in survey data, with implications for analysing inequality and informing better survey design and interpretation. The project is based in the Department of Government and Public Policy at the University of º£½ÇÂÛ̳, aligned with the ESRC Advanced Quantitative Methods steer and supervised by Professors Thomas Scotto, Robert Mattes, and Dr Joe Greenwood-Hau.

01-Jan-2026 - 31-Jan-2030

Mattes, Robert (Principal Investigator)

01-Jan-2026 - 31-Jan-2032

Mattes, Robert (Principal Investigator)

01-Jan-2022 - 28-Jan-2026

Mattes, Robert (Principal Investigator) Shulz-Herzenberg, Collette (Principal Investigator)

ZAR 256,000 (@£143,659) Award from the South African National Research Foundation (Grant #118512) to support a 2019 national post-election survey

01-Jan-2019 - 30-Jan-2022

Mattes, Robert (Principal Investigator) Seekings, Jeremy (Principal Investigator) Lockwood, Sarah Jane (Principal Investigator)

01-Jan-2018

Mattes, Robert (Principal Investigator) Justeson, Mogens (Principal Investigator) Shulz-Herzenberg, Collette (Principal Investigator)

DKK 80,000 (£8800) Award from Copenhagen Business School to analyze 2015 South African Elections Local Elections Survey

01-Jan-2016 - 31-Jan-2017