Why African Autocracies Adopt Gender Reforms

Many authoritarian regimes in Africa have proven rather adept at adopting extensive constitutional and legislative reforms around women’s rights and promoting women as leaders. However, they do not differ much from African democracies in this regard. This is because most of Africa’s 54 countries have dominant ruling parties and hegemonic executives who engage in personalistic rule within presidential or semi-presidential systems. Women’s legislative, local, and executive representation is highest in both democracies and autocracies (not hybrid regimes) where dominant parties have become entrenched, i.e., they have remained in power for over three consecutive elections, winning over 50% of the parliamentary seats in elections. There are differences in the mechanisms the various regimes use to advance women and women’s rights, but the logics are not that different as both regime types instrumentalize women’s rights and representation. They make reforms generally in response to pressures from independent women’s movements, to expand their vote base, or for purposes of their international image. The paper is based on cross-national research in Africa, 150 in-depth interviews in Mauritania, Namibia, Botswana, Uganda, and Zimbabwe in addition to secondary literature and three decades of prior research throughout Africa on related topics. It shows the importance of paying attention to regional and temporal differences in theorizing gender and authoritarianism.