Citizen political participation in Kenya: a cross-sectional analysis

ABSTRACT

Citizen participation in politics continues to be an issue of concern for the Kenyan democracy, which needs to be understood to be addressed. Much of the existing literature on this topic focuses on demographic factors, with no sufficient scholarship interrogating political culture and its influence on citizen political participation. In this thesis, I employ an empirical analysis of the determinants of political participation among Kenyans using primary data I collected through an online survey. My main argument is that political culture matters in determining the patterns of political participation among Kenyans. Results from probit regression analyses illustrate that political culture significantly predicts the levels of political participation among Kenyans, across age cohorts. These findings bring up the discussion on the current rate of citizen participation in politics in Kenya, especially in a world in which democracy is increasingly under threat, and promotes case study analyses, and understanding of participatory democracy.

KEYWORDS:

• Kenya
• citizen participation
• political culture
• political apathy
• participatory democracy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in 20220706_summary_data.xlsx at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/BR5QPD.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Odongo

Nicholas Odongo is an economist and public policy researcher in the areas of policy analysis & strategy, impact evaluation, government & governance, environmental policy & climate change, and development economics. He holds a B.A. Economics from Moi University, an M.Sc. Public Policy from the KDI School of Public Policy and Management and a Ph.D. Policy Studies from Korea University. Dr. Odongo is currently a Research Fellow at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), supporting the Science Technology Innovation Knowledge and Society (STIKS) programme.