Hannah E. Britton

Associate Professor

Department of Political Science

Contact Information

Office phone number(s): (785)864-9016
Office: 504E Blake Hall
Office Hours: On Saabatical
Email Address: britton@ku.edu

Mailing Address:	Department of Political Science
	1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
	Lawrence, KS 66044-3177
	USA

Vita: http://www.ku.edu/~kups/people/vitae/Britton_Hannah.pdf

Background

Educational Background
Graduated from: Syracuse University, Maxwell School, Ph.D., Political Science, 1999
Syracuse University, Maxwell School, M.A., Political Science, 1995
Wake Forest University, B.A., Politics and English, 1992

Previous Positions:

Assistant Professor, Mississippi State University, 2001-2005 Assistant Professor, Winthrop University 1999-2001

Areas of Interest

Research Area
Gender and Politics, African Politics, Comparative Politics, Governance and AIDS, and Strategies To Fight Gender Based Violence

Teaching Area
Gender and Politics, African Politics, Feminist Theory and Methodology, Comparative Politics

My major research interest is in gender and politics in Africa. More specifically, my research and writing examine how gender is utilized as a site of mobilization for women’s social and political advancement, particularly in democratizing contexts.  I have been interested in how African women have worked to change their political status, social power, and material conditions within three levels of political life: the legislature, civil society, and the government bureaucracy. My scholarship is guided by the examination of these three levels independently as well as how the levels interact. In my research, I have been driven by several key questions: (1) why do gender advocates and women’s organizations in southern Africa choose to pursue insider-strategies for feminist change, (2) what are the challenges and opportunities of harnessing the state to alter both the quality of life for women and the social and political status of women in Africa, (3) what are the implications of institutionalizing women’s movements within state structures.

Most of my scholarship has focused on women in African legislatures, the South African women’s movement, and organizational strategies for fighting gender-based violence in the region of southern Africa.  To date, my work has produced a single authored book, two edited collections, and several journal articles and peer-reviewed book chapters.  My first book on women and governance in South Africa, entitled Women in the South African Parliament: From Resistance to Governance (2005), suggests that pre-transition mobilization by women fosters post-transition success in terms of constitutional mandates, party politics, and office holding.  Women’s paths to office included multi-party coalition building and transnational-feminist networking. Gender advocates worked to revise the electoral system in order to facilitate election of women candidates, and they pressured leadership of political parties to advance the status of women through use of affirmative action measures and gender quotas.  Moving in a more cross-national direction, I then completed a co-edited collection with Dr. Gretchen Bauer of the University of Delaware, Women in African Parliaments (2006). Using a case-study approach, this text examines the strategies used by women to gain positions in national office, to rewrite constitutions, and to enact legislative change. My most recent collection, a second edited volume entitled Women’s Activism in South Africa: Working Across Divides (2009), was co-edited with Dr. Jennifer Fish of Old Dominion University and Dr. Sheila Meintjes of the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. This book examines a broad array of gender institutions including the household, competitive sports, domestic violence organizations, and political movements. I am currently working on two new projects: 1) state strategies for addressing gender-based violence in southern Africa and 2) governance and AIDS in Africa.

My teaching interests include courses that relate to gender and sexuality studies, political science, and African studies. A few of the courses that I teach regularly at the undergraduate level include Gender and African Politics, Women in Politics, Contemporary Feminist Political Theory, African Politics, Comparative Politics, and Liberation in Southern Africa. At the graduate level, I teach regularly Women and Gender: Theory and Method, the WGSS Research Colloquium, African Politics and Advanced Qualitative Research Methods.