Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa
Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa

Author: Bruce Berman

Publisher: Ohio University Press

Published: 2004-09-30

Total Pages: 669

ISBN-13: 0821442678

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The politics of identity and ethnicity will remain a fundamental characteristic of African modernity. For this reason, historians and anthropologists have joined political scientists in a discussion about the ways in which democracy can develop in multicultural societies. In Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa, the contributors address why ethnicity represents a political problem, how the problem manifests itself, and which institutional models offer ways of ameliorating the challenges that ethnicity poses to democratic nation-building.

Ethnicity, Democracy and Citizenship in Africa
Ethnicity, Democracy and Citizenship in Africa

Author: Samantha Balaton-Chrimes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-09

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 131714080X

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As an ethnic minority the Nubians of Kenya are struggling for equal citizenship by asserting themselves as indigenous and autochthonous to Kibera, one of Nairobi’s most notorious slums. Having settled there after being brought by the British colonial authorities from Sudan as soldiers, this appears a peculiar claim to make. It is a claim that illuminates the hierarchical nature of Kenya’s ethnicised citizenship regime and the multi-faceted nature of citizenship itself. This book explores two kinds of citizenship deficits; those experienced by the Nubians in Kenya and, more centrally, those which represent the limits of citizenship theories. The author argues for an understanding of citizenship as made up of multiple component parts: status, rights and membership, which are often disaggregated through time, across geographic spaces and amongst different people. This departure from a unitary language of citizenship allows a novel analysis of the central role of ethnicity in the recognition of political membership and distribution of political goods in Kenya. Such an analysis generates important insights into the risks and possibilities of a relationship between ethnicity and democracy that is of broad, global relevance.

Media, Ethnicity, and Electoral Conflicts in Kenya
Media, Ethnicity, and Electoral Conflicts in Kenya

Author: Jacinta Mwende Maweu

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-03-07

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 1793612366

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Media, Ethnicity, and Electoral Conflicts in Kenya critically examines the interplay between the media, ethnicity, and electoral conflicts in Kenya. Jacinta Mwende Maweu analyzes the place of ethnicity in Kenyan politics and the key drivers of electoral conflicts, as well as how ethnicity influences media framing of these conflicts in the Kenyan context. Maweu argues that, although there are many factors that can affect an electoral process and result in conflict and violence, the role that the mainstream media and new media play is central. As Maweu illustrates through various arguments, politicians in Kenya and other deeply divided societies in Africa have continued to use mainstream and digital media to weaponize ethnicity as they invoke issues of belonging, inclusion, and exclusion. By examining the role of both traditional and digital media in electoral conflicts, Media, Ethnicity, and Electoral Conflicts in Kenya makes a significant contribution to the ongoing academic debate on the role of media in elections and electoral conflicts in Kenya and Africa.

Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Democracy in Africa
Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Democracy in Africa

Author: Bethwell A. Ogot

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13:

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The papers included in this volume are selections from the forty contributions that were made at the seminar in Kericho, Kenya from 28-31 1995. The Theme of the seminar was Ethnicity, Nationalism and Democracy in Africa.

Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria
Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria

Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile

Publisher: Nova Publishers

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9781560729679

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This book is more than just a study of ethnic politics in Kenya and Nigeria. The two countries are a microcosm of the entire continent: the problems it faces, its successes and failures, and the hope and despair of hundreds of millions of its people whose aspirations have been frustrated by decades of corrupt leadership that has skilfully exploited one of Africa's biggest weaknesses -- tribalism. But the people themselves are also responsible for that. They have allowed tribalism to flourish and destroy the countries. And they have allowed unscrupulous politicians to use and abuse them -- without storming the Bastille. What they are not responsible for is dictatorship African leaders instituted to perpetuate themselves in office by exploiting tribalism. These despots have been so good at it, and have done it for so long since independence, that many African countries are now on the brink of collapse, with the people at war against themselves.

Ethnicity and Democracy
Ethnicity and Democracy

Author: Douglas Lucas Kivoi

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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When Plato observed that “only the dead have seen the end of war,” the Greek philosopher seemed to have seen modern Africa from a distance. Conflicts have become so regular in Africa that they almost constitute a pattern. The roots of African conflicts are many and diverse but very few are as strong as ethnicity. It is a very powerful force that has been harnessed negatively by lords of impunity to deform Africa. Max Weber defined an ethnic group as those human beings or groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of migration or colonization in such a way that this belief is important for the continuance of non-kinship communal relationship. The politics of identity and ethnicity will remain a fundamental characteristic of the Kenyan democracy. In this paper, I intend to address why ethnicity represents a political problem in Kenya, how the problem manifests itself, and which institutional models offer ways of ameliorating the challenges that ethnicity poses to democratic nation-building. In Kenya there is a relationship between ethnic fractionalization, lower levels of democracy and bad governance. This study seeks to separate out the association between negative ethnicity and poor government performance by disentangling the relationship between ethnicity and democracy. I argue that, the quality of democracy and good governance has been affected by negative ethnicity. Specifically, higher levels of ethnic voting in Kenya reinforce the exclusive democratic practices which undermines democracy and quality leadership hence quality of life. This in turn has bred a cycle of violence after every election that saw the International Criminal Court (ICC) move in to try and end this menace.

Gender, Ethnicity, and Violence in Kenya’s Transitions to Democracy
Gender, Ethnicity, and Violence in Kenya’s Transitions to Democracy

Author: Lyn Ossome

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2018-04-02

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1498558313

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Critiquing the valorization of democracy as a means of containing violence and stabilizing political contestation, this book draws links between the democratization process and sexual/gendered violence observed against women during electioneering periods in Kenya. The book shows the contradictory relationship between democracy and gendered violence as being largely influenced in the first instance by the capitalist interests vested in the colonial state and its imperative to exploit laboring women; secondly, in the nature of the postcolonial state and politics largely captured by ethnic, bourgeois class interests; and third, influenced by neoliberal political ideology that has remained largely disarticulated from women's structural positions in Kenyan society. It argues that colonial capitalist interests established certain patterns of gender exploitation that extended into the postcolonial period such that the indigenous bourgeoisie took the form of an ethnicized elite. Ethnicity shaped politics and neoliberal political ideology further blocked women’s integration into politics in substantive ways. It concludes that it is not so much the norms and values of liberal democracy that assist in understanding women’s exclusion, but rather the structural dynamics that have shaped women’s experiences of democratic politics. In this way, gender violence in the context of democratization and electoral violence with its gendered manifestation can be fully understood as deeply embedded in the history of the structural dynamics of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchalism in Kenya.

The Socio-Cultural, Ethnic and Historic Foundations of Kenya’s Electoral Violence
The Socio-Cultural, Ethnic and Historic Foundations of Kenya’s Electoral Violence

Author: Stephen M. Magu

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-02-02

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1351142429

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Kenya’s 2007 General Election results announcement precipitated the worst ethnic conflict in the country’s history; 1,133 people were killed, while 600,000 were internally displaced. Within 2 months, the incumbent and the challenger had agreed to a power-sharing agreement and a Government of National Unity. This book investigates the role of socio-cultural origins of ethnic conflict during electoral periods in Kenya beginning with the multi-party era of democratization and the first multi-party elections of 1992, illustrating how ethnic groups construct their interests and cooperate (or fail to) based on shared traits. The author demonstrates that socio-cultural traditions have led to the collaboration (and frequent conflict) between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin that has dominated power and politics in independent Kenya. The author goes onto evaluate the possibility of peace for future elections. This book will be of interest to scholars of African democracy, Kenyan history and politics, and ethnic conflict.

Political Power and Tribalism in Kenya
Political Power and Tribalism in Kenya

Author: Westen K. Shilaho

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 3319652958

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This book discusses Kenya’s transition from authoritarianism to more democratic forms of politics and its impact on Kenya’s multi-ethnic society. The author examines two significant questions: Why and how is ethnicity salient in Kenya’s transition from one-party rule to multiparty politics? What is the relationship between ethnic conflict and political liberalization? The project explains the perennial issues of political disorganization through state violence and ethnicization of politics, and considers the significance of the concept of justice in Kenya.