This book investigates women’s political participation in Africa. Going beyond the formal institutions of electoral politics, it explores a range of spaces where everyday politics take place, at national and at local levels. In recent years there have been significant improvements in the number of women elected to parliament in Africa. However, there is little indication that this is translating into better developmental outcomes, and indeed there is mounting evidence that it could in fact help to bolster some authoritarian regimes. Starting from the premise that politics is a far broader project than securing a seat in national or local legislatures alone, this book explores the opportunities for women’s political participation across a number of informal spaces where women and men gather, organise and interact in a more regular and systematic manner. Combining insights from political science, sociology and feminist theory and drawing on detailed cases from the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Rwanda, it examines how power in its multiple dimensions circulates across a range of everyday political spaces, while drawing attention to the links between domestic gender inequalities and the global political economy. Inviting scholars, practitioners and activists to broaden their focus beyond formal electoral institutions if they want to support women to become more politically active, this book provides fresh insights into major issues at the heart of African studies, development studies, gender and development, democratisation, and international relations.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This title was first published in 2000: The continent of Africa is undergoing great change. While on the one hand there is talk of a re-awakening of Africa or Renaissance various countries in Africa are still plagued by poverty, intra- and interstate violence. In some countries the legacy of neo-colonialism and under development contributed to social strife and the potential criminalization of the State. This book addresses the topic of democratization and sustainable democracy in Africa against this background.

Cultured Violence explores contemporary South African culture as a test case for the achievement of democracy by constitutional means in the wake of prolonged and violent cultural conflict. Drawing on and juxtaposing narratives of profoundly different kinds—the fiction of J. M. Coetzee, public testimony form the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, documents from former Deputy President Jacob Zuma's rape trial, and personal interviews among them—in order to illuminate different cultural senses of the “state of the nation” and retrieve otherwise elusive descriptions of South African subjects taken from accounts of their individual lives.

This book contains three comparative case studies to show how gender issues are dealt with in the political structures of the Dominican Republic, Romania and South Africa. These countries were chosen because they are in the process of development and structural reform, with the strong involvement of the international community. The case studies examine two issues that are common to all three countries (violence against women and reproductive health) and one issue specific to each country.