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Abstract
How do social movements force fundamental constitutional changes in a polity? This article argues that it is the ‘disruptive power’ of movements that make them a force of change. By analysing waves of contemporary Kenyan struggles for constitutional and state reform, the article explains why it was only after 20 years of struggle, and in the aftermath of a major social conflict – the 2008 post-election violence – that constitutional reforms were successful. It further argues that it was the collective threats and fears posed by the post-election violence that forced an elite consensus necessary to deliver a new constitution in Kenya in 2010.
Acknowledgements
The writing of this paper begun while on a short-term Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of the Witwatersrand's Humanities Graduate Centre and ended at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP). My gratitude to the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR), Kenya, for granting me the visiting scholar fellowship during my PhD fieldwork, upon which this paper draws. Special thanks also go to the Council for Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) for the Thesis Writing Grant. Professor Michelle Williams of Wits Sociology department: thanks for mentoring me and reviewing the initial draft of this paper. Further thanks to the organising committee of the ‘Workshop on Social Movements and Political Change’ University of Limerick, for the invitation to present the initial draft of this paper.
Notes
1. According to Piven (Citation2006, 20), disruptive power works because ‘all societies organize social life through networks of specialized and interdependent activities … Networks of cooperation and interdependence inevitably give rise to contention … the leverage inherent in interdependencies is potentially widespread … This leverage can in principle be activated by all parties to social relations, and it can also be activated from below, by the withdrawal of contributions to social cooperation by people at the lower end of hierarchical social relations’.
2. I borrow Koopmans’ (Citation2004, 22) conception of cycles or waves of contention to refer to a ‘strong increase and subsequent decrease in the level of contention’.
3. The Mlolongo voting system operated such that electorates queued behind their preferred candidates and did not cast any ballots. The system was open to voter manipulation and intimidation. Voters would be warned not to queue behind any politicians who spoke ill of the Moi political establishment.
4. Interviews with G. Imanyara, Midlands, South Africa, 28 October 2009; W. Kihoro, Nairobi, 23 September 2009; G.K. Kuria, Nairobi, 23 September 2009; K. Kibwana, Nairobi, 21 October 2009.
5. Interview with A. Zein, Nairobi, 7 October 2009.
6. Interview with L. Apiyo, Nairobi, 16 September 2009.
7. Such private militia were not limited to KANU only. Some opposition politicians also funded the establishment of their own militia. The Baghdad Boys in Kisumu largely associated with Ford Kenya's Jaramogi Odinga and later his son Raila Odinga, Jeshi la Embakasi associated with David Mwenje (Democratic Party Member of Parliament for Embakasi) and Mungiki, associated with Kikuyu political elites in Rift Valley and Central provinces are other examples (interview with A. Oganda, Kisumu, 26 March 2010).
8. Interviews with D. Gitari, Kirinyaga, 21 September 2009; K. Kibwana, Nairobi, 21 October 2009.
9. Interviews with K. Kibwana, Nairobi, 21 October, 2009; T. Njoya, Ngong, 29 September 2009.
10. Interview with D. Lamba, Nairobi, 23 October 2009.
11. Interview with Y.P. Ghai, Nairobi, 23 October 2009.
12. Interview with P. Lumumba, Nairobi, 1 October 2009.
13. Interview with Wandati, Kibera, 17 September 2009.
14. Interviews with M. Odhiambo, Nairobi, 1 April 2009; K. Kibwana, Nairobi, 21 October 2009; O. Omtatah, Nairobi, 31 March 2010.
15. Interview with M. Odhiambo, Nairobi, 1 April 2009.