Though the proportion of women in political office remains lower in Africa than in most other regions, African women exhibited new political energy and made unprecedented progress during the past decade.
About the Author
Aili Mari Tripp is associate professor of political science and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of its Women’s Studies Research Center. She is the author of Women and Politics in Uganda (2000) and Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania (1997).
A country’s level of female political representation cannot be explained solely in terms of socioeconomic factors and political institutions. The evidence shows that political culture also matters.
Observers who focus too much on elections have failed to grasp the maturation of Iranian civil society, even as hard-liners have come to dominate the government.
Where indigenous peoples constitute a smaller share of the electorate, their recent inclusion denotes a more generalized opening of the political system to excluded and vulnerable sectors of society.
