Aili Mari Tripp

Position title: Vilas Research Professor of Political Science

Email: atripp@wisc.edu

Phone: (608) 263-1873

Address:
217 North Hall

 

Affiliated with Program of African Studies Program

Education:

Ph.D. in Political Science, Northwestern University, 1990

M.A. in Middle East Studies, University of Chicago, 1985

B.A. in Political Science, University of Chicago, 1983

Research Interests:

Comparative Politics, Gender and Politics, Africa (including North Africa), Women’s Movements, Global Feminism, Authoritarianism

Biography:

Aili Mari Tripp is Vilas Research Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Tripp’s research has focused on gender/women and politics, women’s movements in Africa, transnational feminism, and authoritarian politics in Africa.

Tripp recently completed a book on Why African Autocracies Promote Women Leaders (forthcoming with Oxford University Press). She is presently finishing another book on War, the End of Empire, and the Expansion of Women’s Political Citizenship.

Tripp is author of several award-winning books, including Seeking Legitimacy: Why Arab Autocracies Adopt Women’s Rights (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), which won the 2021 L. Carl Brown Book Prize of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. Other award-winning books by the author include Women and Power in Postconflict Africa (2015), Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime (2010), African Women’s Movements: Transforming Political Landscapes (2009) with Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga, and Alice Mungwa, and Women and Politics in Uganda (2000). Her first book, Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania (1997), was recently reissued. She has edited numerous other books.

Tripp has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Axel Springer Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, African Politics Conference Group best book on African politics award, and the Victoria Schuck award of the American Political Science Association for the best book on women and politics. In 2014 she won the African Studies Association Public Service Award. She has held numerous residential fellowships, including at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS) in South Africa and prior to that at the Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington DC.

Tripp has been president of the African Studies Association and vice president of the American Political Science Association. She has also served on the boards of the American Political Science Association, African Studies Association, National Council for Research on Women, Tanzania Studies Association, University of Wisconsin Press, and numerous other journals and book series. Tripp has been an editor of the flagship journal of the American Political Science Association, the American Political Science Review, and Politics & Gender. She currently serves as a series editor of a University of Wisconsin book series, Women and Gender in Africa, with Jacqueline-Bethel Mougoué.

Courses:

PS 862: State and Society in Comparative Perspective Spring 2023

PS 429: Gender Politics in Comparative Perspective Spring 2023

PS 329: African Politics Fall 2022

PS948: Seminar: State & Society Fall 2022

PS948: Seminar: Gender and Politics in Comparative Perspective Fall 2021

PS469: Gender, Women and Politics Spring 2020

PS948: Seminar: Gender and Politics in Comparative Perspective Spring 2020

Awards & Grants:

2022

National Science Foundation, 2022-24

Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africa

Vilas Research Professor, 2022-

2021

L. Carl Brown Book Prize of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies

Uppsala Forum for Democracy, Uppsala University, Sweden

2020:

UW-Madison Graduate School Research Committee. 2020-21

Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC

2017-2018

Wangari Maathai Professor of Political Science and Gender & Women’s Studies, WARF Professorship

2016-2017

American Academy in Berlin, Axel Springer Award. Spring 2017

Carnegie Corporation and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2016-20

Evjue-Bascom Professorship in Gender and Women’s Studies, 2016-21

Feminist Scholars Fellowship from the Center for Research on Gender and Women, UW-Madison, Fall 2016

Finalist, Herskovits Book Prize, African Studies Association, Women and Power in Postconflict Africa, 2016

Winner, Best book award in African politics, African Politics Conference Group, Women and Power in Postconflict Africa, 2016

2015-2016

Fulbright Award to carry out research and teach in Morocco

2014-2015

African Studies Association Public Service Award

2011-2012

First Runner-up, Best Book on African Politics Award, African Politics Conference Group, for Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime (Lynne Rienner, 2010).

2010-2011

President, African Studies Association, 2011-12

Hear from Professor Tripp on this episode of the 1050 Bascom Podcast!