Hilary Matfess, "After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Apr 5, 2026

Dr. Hilary Matfess, political scientist and author of After Liberation, studies women’s roles in rebellion and postwar politics. She discusses how wartime gains for women often erode after conflict. Conversations cover her Ethiopia fieldwork, a framework of continuity versus moderation, comparative cases, party tradeoffs, and implications for DDR and women’s organizations.

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ANECDOTE

How A Chance Meeting Launched The Research

Hilary Matfess met a former TPLF fighter in Addis Ababa whose family connection launched the project on women veterans.
That woman's stories and referrals opened access to multiple female ex-combatants who became central interviewees for the book.

INSIGHT

Dual Level Framework Of Continuity And Moderation

Matfess frames postwar outcomes as actions at two levels: party-level moderation and individual-level choices by female veterans.
The balance of continuity versus moderation at both levels shapes women's rights and representation after war.

INSIGHT

Wartime Inclusion Doesn't Predict Postwar Gender Progress

Cross-national data showed some postwar gender-progressive parties had been tepid on wartime women's participation.
Rwanda's RPF had low wartime female inclusion yet later high female parliamentary representation, challenging assumptions linking wartime inclusion to postwar gains.

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War offers opportunities for women to liberate their communities and build a better life for themselves. When women join rebel groups, they often take on new roles, cultivate new social networks, and develop new skills. These rebel women often gain the respect of rebel leaders, their comrades-in-arms, and the communities they're fighting for. When the guns are silenced, however, women have struggled to maintain the progress and prestige that they gained during war. Hilary Matfess investigates the gendered legacies of conflict and considers why it is so difficult for female veterans to defend the gains they made during war.

After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions (Stanford UP, 2026) by Dr. Hilary Matfess explores how both individual female veterans and former-rebel political parties balance the incentives to continue their wartime activities or moderate them to succeed in the postwar period. The particular balance struck—by party elites and by female veterans—shapes women's rights and representation after war. Drawing on cross-national statistics and in-depth qualitative case studies of rebel groups—from Ethiopia, Namibia, El Salvador, and Nepal—Dr. Matfess advances a theory to explain the postwar legacies of women's participation in rebellion at both the individual and the organizational levels. This book helps us understand why women that were once lauded as the backbone of the revolution are so frequently relegated to the backburner after war.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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