Replication Data for: Women’s Rights and Critical Junctures in Constitutional Reform in Africa (1951-2019)

We created an original dataset of women’s reforms in 129 constitutions that were passed or amended throughout seventy years in 54 African countries. In doing so, we drew on such sources as Constitute, UN Women’s Global Database of Constitutions, and other websites with archived texts of old constitutions, and then coded them for twelve issue areas related to women’s rights. In our dataset, we also include independent variables such as whether each African country experienced conflict, Freedom House democratic rating, region, former colonial power, whether a country is predominantly Muslim, and regional associations or unions in which countries hold membership. We grouped provisions that especially affect women and girls under the four broad themes of economic rights, political and legal rights including customary and family law, social rights and violence against women, and international treaties. These are selected based on how women’s rights activists in Africa have generally defined women’s rights. We recognize that this categorization may blur the many differences and nuances among those who identify as women. We also looked for gender-inclusive language. We searched the text of constitutions for relevant keywords in specific areas of provisions that fell into these categories and coded for the presence or absence of each type of provision (see codebook for elaboration of coding rules). We then analyzed the data for patterns of when and which African countries were incorporating what types of provisions relating to women’s rights.