Theorising Women’s Political Agency in Nigerian Electoral Democracy: A Feminist Perspective

Liberal democratic theory inadequately accounts for the structured exclusions and power asymmetries that constrain women's political agency in Nigeria's electoral democracy. This study develops a feminist theory of women's political agency in Nigerian electoral democracy, grounded in empirical analysis of female political participation across the 2019 and 2023 general elections. A critical feminist constructivist paradigm underpins a multi-method design employing 70 in-depth interviews with female politicians, voters, party officials, and feminist scholars, electoral data analysis across all states, and ethnographic observation of campaign activities in Lagos, Kano, and Enugu. Feminist standpoint theory, critical democracy theory, and African feminist political thought guided the analytical framework. Findings reveal that women's political agency in Nigeria operates through four modes: formal electoral participation, informal network navigation, strategic compliance with patriarchal political norms, and collective feminist movement mobilisation. Financial barriers to candidacy, party primaries manipulation, and voter gender bias are the most significant structural constraints on formal agency modes. Women who combine informal network navigation with feminist collective strategies demonstrate the most consistent advancement. The study develops an original Nigerian Feminist Political Agency Theory (NFPAT) that accounts for contextual constraints and strategic agency modes absent from universalist democratic theory. This research makes an original contribution to feminist democratic theory in the African context. Keywords: political agency, feminist theory, Nigerian democracy, women politicians, electoral participation