Women’s rights are being enshrined in African constitutions today to an unprecedented extent. African countries have on average more constitutional provisions addressing women’s rights than any other region of the world. This longitudinal cross-national study shows that constitutional reforms in African contexts are increasingly evident in the areas of gender equality, customary law, discrimination, violence against women, gender quotas, and citizenship rights, and they sometimes reflect gender-inclusive language. By analysing a novel data set of constitutional reforms across all African countries over 68 years (1951–2019), this article identifies four critical junctures when the adoption of women’s rights reforms arose, namely (i) after independence, particularly in Muslim-majority countries; (ii) after political opening in the 1990s; (iii) after the end of major civil conflicts; and (iv) after the 2011 Arab uprisings. At each juncture, women’s movements capitalized on political openings to advance constitutional reforms that are unmatched on a global scale. This article goes beyond the existing explanations of cumulative gains, international influence, diffusion, learning, and borrowing to show that a ‘critical junctures’ approach may help explain when, why, and how women’s rights reforms occur in constitutions.

中文翻译：

---

非洲宪法改革中的妇女权利和关键时刻（1951-2019）

今天，妇女权利以前所未有的程度载入非洲宪法。平均而言，非洲国家对妇女权利的宪法规定比世界上任何其他地区都多。这项纵向跨国研究表明，非洲背景下的宪法改革在性别平等、习惯法、歧视、暴力侵害妇女行为、性别配额和公民权利等领域越来越明显，有时还反映了性别包容性语言。通过分析 68 年来（1951-2019 年）所有非洲国家宪法改革的新数据集，本文确定了妇女权利改革出现的四个关键时刻，即（i）独立后，特别是在穆斯林占多数的国家; (ii) 1990 年代政治开放后；(iii) 重大国内冲突结束后；(iv) 2011 年阿拉伯起义之后。在每一个关头，妇女运动都利用政治机会来推进在全球范围内无与伦比的宪法改革。本文超越了对累积收益、国际影响、传播、学习和借用的现有解释，表明“关键时刻”方法可能有助于解释妇女权利改革何时、为什么以及如何在宪法中发生。