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The modern-day Republic of Benin in West Africa was historically a patchwork of precolonial kingdoms and acephalous zones. In the 17th century, the kingdom of Dahomey formed in the south central interior plateau region of modern-day Benin. In the 18th century, Dahomey grew to become the dominant regional power. Dahomey’s women were famed globally for their roles as government ministers, queen mothers, and warriors. Women had multiple means through which to achieve various forms of power. Women’s power was multi-faceted during the precolonial era; however, these women’s power required proximity to the king and incorporation into the royal palace. During the colonial era from 1894–1960, women had much fewer opportunities to achieve positions of formal power. After the conquest of the Slave Coast region in the 1890s, France established a colony named after the kingdom of Dahomey. Women’s roles in politics declined rapidly as part of the shift from the precolonial to colonial systems of governance. This shift continued a trend though, already unfolding in the 19th century, that reduced women’s power in the royal palace. Few women rose to formal positions of authority in collaboration with the French colonial administration. Colonialism irrevocably transformed gendered systems of power and authority in ways that removed Dahomean women from officially sanctioned positions of power. Despite these restrictions, Dahomean women always found ways to express their agendas and exert influence over the colonial government. During the colonial era, market women, in particular, found ways to protest colonial policies and developed gendered strategies of activism. In 1960, Dahomey gained independence from France and was renamed Benin in 1972. Beninese women have struggled to regain their active roles in political life. Since the end of the Cold War and the transition from socialism to democracy in the 1990s, individual Beninese women who had access to education and the opportunity to study and work for extended periods of time have managed to once again participate in national politics. However, they remain a disadvantaged minority in electoral politics.

Political authority in Benin has historically swung from the uneasy coexistence of multiple leaders representing ethno-regional groups to dominance by one leader in a quest for stability and unity. The country’s struggles to maintain democracy in the face of authoritarian pressures from the early 2010s exemplifies this trend. In precolonial times, disparate kingdoms and acephalous societies coexisted on the territory, with the Kingdom of Dahomey as the most centralized and well-documented political unit. The French effort to unify and stabilize the country under colonial rule from 1894 required military force but withstood the pressure for greater representation and indigenous control only to 1960. The political fault lines that emerged in the late-colonial period followed ethno-regional lines, with multiple powerful regional leaders vying for control at independence under a new, democratic constitution. The instability that resulted from multiple contenders for power made room for military intervention in the form of coups d’état from 1963 to 1972, after which time a military dictatorship was firmly installed under Mathieu Kérékou. By the late 1980s, economic mismanagement by government and people’s yearning for freedom produced a dramatic democratic transition in Benin, kicking off a wave of similar transitions throughout sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s. A new democratic constitution institutionalized political participation and competition rather than dictatorial rule, and the country successfully navigated several rounds of elections and transfers of power. Ethnic fragmentation contributed to a proliferation of political parties, usually centered around one leader drawing support from a particular geographic area. From 2006, the presidency was held by candidates with business backgrounds, reflecting voters’ hopes for much needed economic development in one of the poorer countries in the world. President Patrice Talon (first elected 2016) has reimposed greater centralization and control, moving the country away from democratic rule and power sharing and closer to authoritarian rule.

The region of West Africa currently delineated by the boundaries of the independent country of Nigeria has a long, rich, and complex history exhibiting dramatic political, economic, social, and cultural change over time. Archaeological evidence of indigenous communities dates back to at least 8000 bce. Early states and societies took a variety of different forms and developed significant interaction among each other and through long-distance trade networks in the savannahs and coastal regions. The 19th century saw the encroachment of British colonialism, which ultimately produced the territory of Nigeria in 1914. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960, but the country has been beset by significant political instability and economic underdevelopment. As a result, the process of developing a national historical narrative has been complex and contested in a country whose borders were largely established by alien colonial rulers and that has since been beset by a variety of internal divisions with differing relationships to Nigeria as a corporate entity. This complexity is reflected in the dynamics of Nigerian historiography and the primary source bases upon which historical scholarship has relied.