Rwanda: Women’s Political Participation in Post-Conflict State-Building Page 1 of 13 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: New York University; date: 30 May 2019 Print Publication Date: Feb 2018 Subject: Political Science, Comparative Politics, Political Behavior Online Publication Date: Dec 2017 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199300983.013.45 Rwanda: Women’s Political Participation in Post-Con flict State-Building Doris Buss and Jerusa Ali The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict Edited by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Naomi Cahn, Dina Francesca Haynes, and Nahla Valji Oxford Handbooks Online Abstract and Keywords Since the end of the genocide and civil war in Rwanda, various measures have been im plemented to facilitate women’s political participation. This chapter looks to post-conflict Rwanda as a case study in the successes and limitations in efforts to increase women’s participation in public life. The chapter details the desired outcomes of increased political participation by women before turning to the Rwandan example. It argues that while the increased presence of women in public life has resulted in some positive economic, politi cal, and social outcomes, the power of female politicians is largely limited and has not re sulted in sustainable or equitable long-term policies. The chapter concludes that while Rwanda has formally adopted many of the international best practices of transitional jus tice, its overall gains in women’s participation are more uneven, contradictory, and non linear than is often recognized. Keywords: Rwanda, civil war, women’s political participation, public life, transitional justice, genocide RWANDA provides a rich context in which to examine women’s participation in post-con flict transitional justice and reconstruction processes. Since 1994 and the end of the genocide and civil war, an array of measures have been implemented to facilitate women’s participation in political life, including election quotas and women-specific polit ical institutions, as well as legal changes to formalize women’s rights. These measures ap pear to have made a significant impact, with women elected to political office in unprece dented numbers in the 2013 elections, when they were elected to fifty-one—almost 64 percent—of Rwanda’s parliamentary seats. Increasing women’s participation in public life is a much-vaunted goal of post-conflict peace- and state-building. A growing number of international policies and programming are aimed at including women in peace negotiations, transitional justice mechanisms, and —our interest here—post-conflict reforms to political processes and public administra