ABSTRACT
In all African states the phase of clientelist politics led to acute political crises associated with factionalism, ethnic competition, and corruption. In many cases, including Kenya and Zambia, the response to crisis was structural reform in the political system, in an attempt to retain clientelism and its benefits while controlling its destabilizing effects. This chapter describes a common interpretation of African women’s political participation, an interpretation with major implications for the understanding of women’s part in contemporary democratic struggles. Around 1950 the links were strengthened by the growing importance of national issues and of militant nationalism, as well as the expanding role of urban militants in rural struggles. The sudden granting of the vote to a largely rural electorate completed the eradication of radical nationalism: Party leaders and activists, even radicals, became preoccupied with mobilizing for elections rather than mobilizing for confrontation.
