Gretchen Bauer

‘Let there be a Balance’: Women in African Parliaments

It has been 25 years since the National Resistance Movement took power in Uganda and ushered in an era of womens increased presence in African legislatures – at first in east and southern Africa and eventually beyond. In 2008, Ugandas neighbor Rwanda became the first country in the world to have more women than men in a chamber of parliament. In mid-2012, eight African countries were among the top 30 countries worldwide in terms of womens presence in a single or lower house of parliament. Across the continent one country after another has taken measures to increase womens presence in the national legislature. This article provides an update on these developments within sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, the article seeks to evaluate womens descriptive, substantive and symbolic representation in African parliaments in the last quarter-century by reviewing a growing literature. Despite the remarkable gains that have been made by women in national legislatures across the continent, Africas accomplishments in this arena are little known – in contrast to those from other parts of the world. This article, in surveying and synthesizing the literature, seeks also to make those accomplishments better known.

Fifty/Fifty by 20201

During the last two decades large numbers of women have entered parliaments in several east and southern African countries. In late 2007, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa in southern Africa and Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda in east Africa all had national legislatures ranging from 25 to nearly 50 per cent women, placing them in the top 26 worldwide. This is far above the Sub-Saharan African and world averages of about 17 per cent women in a single or lower house of parliament. This development is part of a global trend whereby women are using electoral gender quotas to take a ‘fast track’ to equal legislative representation. The six countries identified here share a set of common characteristics explaining womens electoral success, with one important difference. The three southern African cases have all increased their percentages of women in parliament using a proportional representation electoral system and voluntary political party based quotas. The three east African cases have done the same through the use of a mix of electoral systems and mandatory ‘special’ or ‘reserved’ seats for women. This article describes the two alternatives, discusses their impact on womens descriptive and substantive representation in these six African countries and concludes with a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of each type of electoral gender quota.

‘The Hand That Stirs the Pot Can Also Run the Country’: electing women to parliament in Namibia

In early 2004, 29 % of Namibian Members of Parliament were women, putting Namibia fourth in continental Africa and seventeenth worldwide in terms of womens representation in a national legislature. This article sets out to determine how such a high percentage of women has been elected to the National Assembly in Namibia since independence. It suggests that electoral gains have been achieved through a combination of factors: the use of a closed list proportional representation electoral system and voluntary quotas on the part of political parties at the national level, sustained pressure over the past three to five years from a nascent womens movement influenced by the global womens movement, and the active participation of women inside and outside the country in a protracted and violent struggle for independence that was only attained in 1990. The first two factors confirm past experience and accumulated knowledge on the significance of choice of electoral system and use of quotas, and the importance of womens organisations to elected womens legislative agendas and success. The last factor deviates from experience, and from a literature that suggests that womens active participation in political struggles has not always translated into tangible gains for women.

Update on the Women's Movement in Botswana: Have Women Stopped Talking?

Abstract: Across Africa in the early twenty-first century, autonomous womens movements have transformed the political landscape. With their support, African women are lobbying for constitutional reforms, entering political office in unprecedented numbers, and initiating legislation to expand womens rights. African womens movements have been emboldened by changes in international and regional norms concerning womens rights and representation, a new availability of resources to enhance womens status, and in many places, an end to conflict. In Botswana, the 1980s and 1990s were a period of heightened womens mobilization. Led by the womens organization Emang Basadi, the womens movement accomplished many significant victories, including winning a landmark citizenship case, prompting a comprehensive review of laws to identify instances of gender discrimination, issuing the first womens manifesto in Africa, and organizing workshops for political parties and women candidates. Some scholars have suggested that Emang Basadis work was responsible not just for increasing womens representation in parliament, but also for broadening democracy in Botswana. Since 2010, however, a once vibrant womens movement has gone quiet. This article seeks to understand this development and to explore how the movement might be revitalized. The article concludes by drawing comparisons with other womens movements in the region and suggesting that the womens movement in Botswana, like others in the region, may be, in the words of one scholar, “in abeyance.”

‘What is wrong with a woman being chief?’ Women Chiefs and Symbolic and Substantive Representation in Botswana:

Across the globe women are accessing national legislatures and executives in unprecedented numbers. Over the last 25 years several African countries have led the way in women’s representation in parliaments and, more recently, in cabinets. At the same time, governments and foreign donors are increasingly focusing on the role of traditional leaders in local-level politics as states democratize and decentralize across the continent. Once considered hopelessly undemocratic and patriarchal, traditional leaders are more recently viewed in many African countries as one half of a viable and effective hybrid system at the local level. In addition, whereas the role of chief has been largely the preserve of African men, African women are increasingly asserting a right to become chief. This article, using Botswana as a case study, suggests that the increased presence of women in national legislatures and executives may be having a symbolic representation effect on African women who are insisting that they too may access political power, even in positions formerly unavailable to them, such as chief. This article further suggests that, like their women counterparts in African parliaments, once they gain access to political office, women chiefs may substantively represent women’s interests, in venues such as a House of Chiefs and in their communities.

“A lot of head wraps”: African contributions to the third wave of electoral gender quotas

Over the last more than two decades, political parties and governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have adopted electoral gender quotas for parliament at an astonishing rate – and with remarkable success as many sub-Saharan African countries have catapulted to the top in terms of womens representation in a single or lower house of parliament. During a first wave in East and Southern Africa (part of a global “second wave”), quotas were adopted in the aftermath of conflicts and in the course of political transitions as mobilized national womens movements, influenced by an international womens movement and international norms, took advantage of political openings to press for the adoption of quotas through new constitutions or new electoral laws. In some cases a clear diffusion effect was at play between political movements that closely influenced one another and across national borders. During a second wave mostly, though not only, in West Africa (part of a global “third” wave), quotas are again being adopted as womens movements, in collaboration with regional, continental, and international organizations, similarly press for an increased representation of women during constitutional reform processes or through revisions to electoral laws. During this second wave in SSA, women activists and governments have sought to strengthen existing electoral gender quotas or adopt them for the first time – going as far as seeking gender parity in a handful of cases. In most ways, SSA conforms to international trends in second and third wave quota adoption, though not without some regional variation. This article explores some of the ways in which the sub-Saharan African experience has been distinctive – focusing on the adoption of parity quotas in Senegal, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe – and some of the remaining challenges affecting the adoption and implementation of electoral gender quotas across the continent.

Creating Germans abroad : cultural policies and national identity in Namibia

WHEN World War I brought an end to German colonial rule in Namibia, much of the German population stayed on. The German community, which had managed to deal with colonial administration, faced new challenges when the region became a South African mandate under the League of Nations in 1919. One of these was the issue of Germanness, which ultimately resulted in public conversations and expressions of identity. In Creating Germans Abroad, Daniel Walther examines this discourse and provides striking new insights into the character of the German populace in both Germany and its former colony, Southwest Africa, known today as Namibia. In addition to German colonialism, Walther considers issues of race, class, and gender and the activities of minority groups. He offers new perspectives on German cultural and national identity during the Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich. In a larger context, Creating Germans Abroad acts as a model for investigating the strategies and motivations of groups and individuals engaged in national or ethnic engineering and demonstrates how unforeseen circumstances can affect the nature and outcome of these endeavors.