For richer, for poorer: why ethnicity often trumps economic cleavages in Kenya

Biniam E. Bedasso

Review of African Political Economy, 2017, vol. 44, issue 151, 10-29

Abstract: This article aims to examine why ethnic allegiances have persisted as the most dominant platform used by the elites to organise collective action in Kenya. The author formulates a broad theoretical framework centred around the organisational role of ethnicity in negotiating social orders. Empirically, it is shown that ethnic allegiances in Kenya are deeply rooted in group inequalities and feelings of historical injustice. Moreover, the historical structure of the economy has skewed the distribution of economic rents toward group-specific activities and resources. Therefore, the early institutions of the country were designed in such a way that the stability of political order would depend on the elites’ ability to use ethnicity as a bargaining chip. Ethnicity continues to be politically salient partly because economic rents are not individualised enough to sustainably support trans-ethnic forms of organisation.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2016.1169164

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