Individuals and Institutions

Abstract

Chapter 1 provides a theoretical framework for understanding African women’s experiences within the broader scholarship on women in politics. The chapter discusses, in three stages, the choices African women must make as they aspire to candidacy, campaign in elections, and govern in office. For each stage, the authors review central theories in the literature on women’s representation and discuss how related hypotheses are upheld or contradicted by emerging evidence from African countries. These overviews highlight common empirical findings as well as specific contradictions across the eight countries examined in the book—Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Uganda, and Zambia. The chapter also provides a concise description of each empirical chapter’s core findings with an emphasis on how individual attributes (e.g., professional background, financial autonomy, organizational ties) and institutional structures (e.g., political parties, electoral systems, media organizations, patronage politics) interact to impinge on African women’s political trajectories.