Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors
Kenya's March 2013 elections ushered in a popular system of devolved government that represented the country's biggest political transformation since independence. Yet within months there were public calls for a referendum to significantly revise the new arrangements. This article analyses...
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| Формат: | Journal article |
| Опубликовано: |
Cambridge University Press
2016
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| _version_ | 1826271919714861056 |
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| author | Cheeseman, N Lynch, G Willis, J |
| author_facet | Cheeseman, N Lynch, G Willis, J |
| author_sort | Cheeseman, N |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Kenya's March 2013 elections ushered in a popular system of devolved government that represented the country's biggest political transformation since independence. Yet within months there were public calls for a referendum to significantly revise the new arrangements. This article analyses the campaign that was led by the newly elected governors in order to understand the ongoing disputes over the introduction of decentralisation in Kenya, and what they tell us about the potential for devolution to check the power of central government and to diffuse political and ethnic tensions. Drawing on Putnam's theory of two-level games, we suggest that Kenya's new governors have proved willing and capable of acting in concert to protect their own positions because the pressure that governors are placed under at the local level to defend county interests has made it politically dangerous for them to be co-opted by the centre. As a result, the Kenyan experience cannot be read as a case of ‘recentralisation’ by the national government, or as one of the capture of sub-national units by ‘local elites’ or ‘notables’. Rather, decentralisation in Kenya has generated a political system with a more robust set of checks and balances, but at the expense of fostering a new set of local controversies that have the potential to exacerbate corruption and fuel local ethnic tensions in some parts of the country. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:04:19Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:4fa3b8e6-a934-4dfa-861d-e2c28952ec17 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:04:19Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:4fa3b8e6-a934-4dfa-861d-e2c28952ec172022-03-26T16:08:30ZDecentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governorsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:4fa3b8e6-a934-4dfa-861d-e2c28952ec17Symplectic Elements at OxfordCambridge University Press2016Cheeseman, NLynch, GWillis, JKenya's March 2013 elections ushered in a popular system of devolved government that represented the country's biggest political transformation since independence. Yet within months there were public calls for a referendum to significantly revise the new arrangements. This article analyses the campaign that was led by the newly elected governors in order to understand the ongoing disputes over the introduction of decentralisation in Kenya, and what they tell us about the potential for devolution to check the power of central government and to diffuse political and ethnic tensions. Drawing on Putnam's theory of two-level games, we suggest that Kenya's new governors have proved willing and capable of acting in concert to protect their own positions because the pressure that governors are placed under at the local level to defend county interests has made it politically dangerous for them to be co-opted by the centre. As a result, the Kenyan experience cannot be read as a case of ‘recentralisation’ by the national government, or as one of the capture of sub-national units by ‘local elites’ or ‘notables’. Rather, decentralisation in Kenya has generated a political system with a more robust set of checks and balances, but at the expense of fostering a new set of local controversies that have the potential to exacerbate corruption and fuel local ethnic tensions in some parts of the country. |
| spellingShingle | Cheeseman, N Lynch, G Willis, J Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors |
| title | Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors |
| title_full | Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors |
| title_fullStr | Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors |
| title_full_unstemmed | Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors |
| title_short | Decentralisation in Kenya: the governance of governors |
| title_sort | decentralisation in kenya the governance of governors |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT cheesemann decentralisationinkenyathegovernanceofgovernors AT lynchg decentralisationinkenyathegovernanceofgovernors AT willisj decentralisationinkenyathegovernanceofgovernors |