Aili Mari Tripp
Vilas Research Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
My research has focused on gender/women and politics, women’s movements in Africa, transnational feminism, African politics (with particular reference to Uganda and Tanzania), autocracies in Africa, and on the informal economy in Africa. I am presently working on a project on the end of empire, war, and the expansion of women’s political citizenship globally.
I teach courses on gender and politics (graduate and undergraduate), African politics (undergraduate), and state and society (graduate) among others.
Author
My books are broadly comparative in tackling questions relating to why some countries do better than others in advancing women as political leaders and in promoting women’s rights. I bring the perspectives of different people I have interviewed into my writing, having lived and carried out extensive research in many countries across Africa from Uganda to Morocco.
I am the author of numerous award-winning books, including Seeking Legitimacy: Why Arab Autocracies Adopt Women’s Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Women and Power in Postconflict Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime (Lynne Rienner, 2010), African Women’s Movements: Transforming Political Landscapes (Cambridge University Press, 2009) with Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga, and Alice Mungwa, Women and Politics in Uganda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), and Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania (1997), which was recently reissued by University of California Press. Most recently I published Why African Autocracies Promote Women Leaders with Oxford University Press (2025). I also published Joan Wicken and Her Lifelong Collaboration with Mwalimu Nyerere (Mkuki na Nyota, 2023).
I have edited several books, including The State, Ethnicity, and Gender in Africa: Intellectual Legacies of Crawford Young (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024) and co-edited (with Ladan Affi and Liv Tønnessen) Women and Peacebuilding in Africa (2021), (with Balghis Badri) Women’s Activism in Africa (2017), (with Myra Marx Ferree and Christina Ewig) Gender, Violence, and Human Security: Critical Feminist Perspectives (2013), (with Myra Marx Ferree) Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, Sub-Saharan Africa: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women’s Issues Worldwide (2003), (with Joy Kwesiga) The Women’s Movement in Uganda: History, Challenges and Prospects (2002), as well as (with Marja-Liisa Swantz) What Went Right in Tanzania? People’s Responses to Directed Development (1996).
Awards & Achievements
I have been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Axel Springer Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the L. Carl Brown Book Prize from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the African Politics Conference Group best book on African politics award, and the Victoria Schuck award of the American Political Science Association for the best book on women and politics. In 2014, I won the African Studies Association Public Service Award. I recently held a residential fellowship at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS) in South Africa and prior to that at the Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington DC.
I have also been awarded competitive research grants from major funders, including the National Science Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright Program, American Association of University Women, American Council of Learned Societies, World Institute for Development Economics Research, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I have been a recipient of a Vilas Research Professorship, WARF Professorship, Evjue Bascom Professorship of Gender and Women’s Studies, Kellett Mid-Career Award, and the Hamel Faculty Fellowship in addition other fellowships.
Aili Tripp at Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Studies in South Africa. Credit: STIAS
Other Contributions
I have been president of the African Studies Association and vice president of the American Political Science Association.
I’ve also served on the boards of the American Political Science Association, African Studies Association, National Council for Research on Women, Tanzania Studies Association, University of Wisconsin Press, and numerous other journals and book series.
I have been part of a team of editors of the American Political Science Review, the flagship journal of the American Political Science Association. I also co-edited the journal Politics and Gender. Together with Jacqueline-Bethel Mougué, I also co-edit the new book series, Women and Gender in Africa, for the University of Wisconsin Press.
The American Political Science Review Editorial Team.
