Edited by Viviene Taylor, with Anne Mager and Paula Cardoso, and published by the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) network, this French edition of the 2000 volume—translated by Eliane de Saint-Martin—documents the proceedings of the 1999 Africa Regional Research Meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa. Produced within DAWN’s programme on Political Restructuring and Social Transformation (PRST), the publication examines how economic globalisation and structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) reshape governance, citizenship, and women’s political participation across the African continent.

The report explores critiques of mainstream “good governance” paradigms and pluralist democracy, examining how market-driven reforms fail to address economic exclusion. It also addresses the strategic dilemmas of institutionalising gender politics within the state, discussing the marginalisation of feminist agendas and the emergence of phenomena such as “First Ladyism”. The text further examines the effects of public service privatisation on women’s reproductive labour, alongside debates on the NGO-isation of social movements, autonomous organising, and the role of regional knowledge production in shaping alternative development perspectives.