| Many developing countries struggle with the problem of how, at the local level, to effectively implement progressive national laws designed to improve the political, social, and economic status of women. I argue that traditional leaders---a group that includes chiefs, kings and queens, and headmen/women---play a pivotal role in these implementation processes due to chiefs' local-level legitimacy and the lack of state presence in rural areas. This dynamic motivates the project's central question: under what conditions will traditional leaders support women's rights policies? The African politics literature suggests that traditional leaders will not support gender equality measures because they enforce patriarchal ruling and belief systems. In Namibia, however, chiefs have actively promoted some women's rights policies. What explains this variation in policy support? Using a mixed-methods approach that draws upon ten months of fieldwork in Namibia, interviews, archival records, and a survey of Namibians living under traditional authorities, I examine chiefs' implementation of women's rights measures in three policy areas: communal land allocation and inheritance, HIV/AIDS education and treatment, and gender-based violence prevention. I find that two factors shape chiefs' participation in women's rights policy implementation: 1) whether traditional leaders frame an issue as communal---a matter that affects an entire community's wellbeing---rather than private or individual; and 2) whether institutionalized state oversight of chiefs' policy implementation activities exists. |
