João Garrido Conduto is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa), where he is part of the LINKS project. The project investigates the effects of constituency service on political trust and citizens' attitudes towards democracy, as well as on MPs' political careers, in Ghana and South Africa. Between 2021 and 2025, he was part of the HOME project, which examined how members of parliament in Africa represent their constituencies.

He holds a PhD in Political Science (Comparative Politics) from ICS-ULisboa, with a thesis on the dynamics of electoral fairness and power alternation in Sub-Saharan Africa, funded by an individual grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). For his thesis, he built an original dataset covering 64 elections across 16 countries (1993-2020). He also holds an MA in Political Science and International Relations (Globalization and Environment) from NOVA FCSH.

His research interests include electoral integrity, political competition, political parties and elites, political representation, and processes of democratization, in the African context. His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Southern African Studies, Political Research Exchange, and Cadernos de Estudos Africanos.

Field of activity: Electoral Studies; African Studies

Keywords: Electoral integrity; Political representation; African Studies; Democratisation; Political parties