Pexels/Polina Zimmerman
Your professional profile: You hold a minimum of a PhD and have a background as an international legislative scholar/practitioner. Experience of working with German government entities and German language ability is advantageous.
Background to study: The Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) is committed to supporting the collective rule of law, peace, and freedom in the countries in which it is active. Parliaments, as institutions, are ideally placed to help ensure each of these objectives are met. Trust in parliaments’ ability to do so is presently low. While we know that the performance of parliament alone does not engender trust amongst citizens, learning more about its efficacy and efficiency is nonetheless an important starting point in bridging the gap between the inner life of parliament and that of the citizens it represents. In South Africa, the overarching picture suggests that there is much scope to learn more- and share more- about what the Parliament may be doing right. For this reason, the KAS is engaging in a research project to open up this important conversation in the name of civic education and, ultimately, civic action. This research study currently carries the provisional title “Positive Parliament”.
Activity required:
- Interviews. Arrangement, scheduling, conducting, and recording (written / video) of at least five interviews with MPs and parliamentary staff from the South African Parliament. The aim is to capture positive examples of just how the Parliament may be performing its constitutional functions. These include those that fall into the general categories of representation, policy-shaping, and oversight but extend to questions that lie at the heart of the work of the KAS: support for the rule of law and justice, as well as maintaining peace and freedom across the populace. Interviews will also focus on learning more about just how parliament goes about presenting itself to the public. In other words: How does the parliament see itself, and what is it doing to promote its self-image? This dual approach is taken because what we know about trust in parliament suggests that what parliament symbolises to the public matters more than its actual performance as an institution. Knowing more about Parliament’s relationship to its self-image will thus help us understand more about the origins of citizen’s trust and distrust in the institution.
- Writing: Using the information captured from the interviews and your research background, writing, placing and publishing five articles on the theme of “Positive Parliament” in a major South African newspaper. The article series is envisaged to be deliberately short and digestible to the public, consisting of ca.1200- 1500 words each. The actual content of each of the five articles will be guided by the data collected, but some potential subjects of interest include: • Transparency of committee proceedings (open to the public and the media) 5 • Strong relations between CSOs and parliamentary committees • Establishment of the Parliamentary Budget Office (to assist in budgetary oversight and scrutiny) • The way in which Parliament utilises the extensive information available to it on the budget and financial matters. 7 • Quality and number of its research staff • Parliamentary outreach tools and mechanisms for civic education
Timeline: the five articles are to be published by the end of June 2024.
Expected time investment: 10 full days.
Should you want to submit a bid to complete this research, please send your CV with your expected fee to complete the study to christiaan.endres@kas.de
