ABSTRACT
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, several of Africa’s 54 nations have seen dramatic increases in the number of women in politics. This change can be attributed to several factors. Women’s political activism increased during the 1990s, both within and beyond the formal political sphere. The mobilization of women’s movements within national political transitions has become much more effective. The internationalization of feminism globally – which has put women’s demands for greater representation on the international stage – as evidenced in the World Conferences convened by the United Nations (UN) and by increasingly vocal transnational feminist networks, has also empowered women’s activism at local levels. The countries with increased women’s political representation are all electoral democracies, many of which have undergone transitions from various forms of authoritarian rule (van de Walle, this volume).
