@article{CRSIJ26000088,
                  author = {Matthias Akaniyene Francis, Modupe Oluremi Albert},
                  title = {Structurally Masculinised Democracy: Women’s Political Exclusion and Institutional Resistance in Nigeria (1999 - 2025)},
                  journal = {Cosmo Research and Science International Journal},
                  year = {2025},
                  volume = {1},
                  number = {5},
                  pages = {125-134},
                  issn = {3108-1584},
                  url = {https://cosmorsij.com/published/CRSIJ26000088.pdf},
                  abstract = {This article provides the most comprehensive synthesis to date of research on women’s political participation in Nigeria from the country’s democratic transition in 1999 to early 2025. Drawing on several peer-reviewed studies, institutional reports, and legal documents, the review examines the persistent under-representation of women in elected office despite constitutional guarantees and international commitments. Using a feminist institutionalist framework, the analysis demonstrates how informal political practices, monetised party primaries, patronage networks, electoral violence, and gendered insecurity, interact with formal rules to sustain structural male dominance. Quantitative trends reveal a modest peak in female representation between 2007 and 2011 (approximately 6-8 per cent in the National Assembly), followed by regression to 3.6-3.9 per cent after the 2023 general elections, placing Nigeria among the lowest-ranking democracies globally. The article advances the literature in three ways: it integrates political finance and gendered insecurity into a unified explanatory framework; it situates Nigeria comparatively within African quota regimes; and it shifts the research agenda from descriptive diagnosis toward institutional reform strategies. Across the reviewed literature, the most consistently proposed interventions involve quotas, campaign finance restructuring, and gender-responsive security frameworks.},
                  keywords = {feminist institutionalism, women’s political participation, gender representation, affirmative action, democracy},
                  month = {March}
        }