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| Title: | 'Ethnic Clashes' and Winning Elections: The Case of Kenya's Electoral Despotism |
| Author: | Klopp, Jacqueline M. |
| Year: | 2001 |
| Periodical: | Canadian Journal of African Studies |
| Volume: | 35 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Pages: | 473-517 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | ethnic relations authoritarianism elections Politics and Government |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/486297 |
| Abstract: | This article draws on Mahmood Mamdani's insight that a focus on national level urban politics alone provides an inadequate understanding of the form of despotism in Africa. In particular, it argues that Mamdani's theory of 'decentralized despotism' helps to illuminate how Kenya's ruling clique can generate and benefit from a series of localized 'ethnic clashes' in its struggle to remain in power. The article begins with a brief historical examination of the system of rule in Kenya with a particular scrutiny of the processes by which localities are incorporated into the central State. Next, the article gives an account of the challenges to KANU rule emerging from the onset of multiparty politics in the early 1990s and analyses the initial responses by key actors in the Moi government. It focuses on the emergence of an anti-multiparty discourse in the form of an ethnically exclusive rhetoric of 'majimboism'. 'Majimbo' means 'province' in Swahili and 'majimboism' refers to the early postindependence federalist constitutional structure where significant powers were to be devolved to colonially defined provinces. The article traces how these ruling party responses were experienced in one locality, Narok North Constituency, where 'clashes' in October 1993 left over thirty-five dead and at least thirty thousand displaced. Finally, the article discusses the implications of this unprecedented violence for Kenya's transition process. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French. |
