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

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.

[Pour le meilleur et pour le pire : pourquoi l’ethnicité dépasse les clivages économiques au Kenya.] Cet article vise à analyser les raisons pour lesquelles les allégeances ethniques ont persisté comme la tribune la plus utilisée par les élites pour organiser l’action collective au Kenya. L’auteur formule un cadre théorique large centré sur le rôle organisationnel de l’ethnicité dans la négociation des ordres sociaux. De manière empirique, l’article montre que les allégeances ethniques au Kenya sont profondément enracinées dans les inégalités de groupe et les sentiments d’injustice historique. De plus, la structure historique de l’économie a modelé la répartition des rentes économiques vers des activités et des ressources spécifiques à des groupes. Par conséquent, les premières institutions du pays ont été conçues de telle manière que la stabilité de l’ordre politique dépendrait de la capacité des élites à utiliser l’ethnicité comme une monnaie d’échange. L’ethnicité continue à être importante au niveau politique en partie du fait des rentes économiques qui ne sont pas assez individualisées pour soutenir de manière durable les formes trans-ethniques d’organisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnicity
• class
• inequality
• elites
• dominant coalition
• Kenya

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Ethnicité
• classe
• inégalité
• élites
• coalition dominante
• Kenya

Acknowledgements

This article was written when I was a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland at College Park. I am grateful to John J. Wallis for reading and critiquing draft versions. I would like to thank Nicolas Meisel, Adam Szirmai, Kaj Thomsson and two anonymous referees for comments and suggestions. I am thankful to seminar participants at Maastricht University and the French Development Agency in Nairobi and Paris for useful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Biniam Bedasso is a political economist with diverse interests in the economics, politics and institutions of African countries. Biniam was a Robert S. McNamara Fellow of the World Bank as well as a Young African Professionals Fellow of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. He is currently a Research Associate at Economic Research Southern Africa. Biniam received a PhD in Public Policy from Maastricht University in 2013.

ORCiD

Biniam E. Bedasso http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5526-2572

Notes

1. See Volume II of the final report of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (2013) for more details.

2. Caselli and Coleman II (2006) formulate a framework that shows, in a contest for public resources, agents organise in groups that would ensure sufficient exclusion, ex post, of the losing side in the interest of preserving the rents for as few people as possible. Ethnic cleavages that are underlined by physical difference such as colour of skin and linguistic differences could be ideal to guarantee such exclusion.

3. Contrast this number with the 220,000 Kikuyu squatters in 1948, consisting of nearly a quarter of the Kikuyu population, and it would paint a vivid picture of how differentiated and even polarised the Kikuyu community was before independence.

4. Government positions that are included in this survey are presidency and cabinet, assistant ministers, permanent secretaries, deputy permanent secretaries and undersecretaries, provincial commissioners, deputy provincial commissioners and district commissioners, and officials from the armed forces.

5. Off the equilibrium outcomes are actions that would have otherwise arisen but remain unrealistic owing to the reaction or punishment they would trigger.

6. Rick Lyman, The Inquirer, May 3, 1992.

7. Bedasso (2015) presents a comprehensive framework that links elite human capital to institutional change in general and intra-elite rule of law in particular.

Additional information

Funding

I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Robert S. McNamara Fellowship Program of the World Bank. Funding for the background fieldwork was provided by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD).