"We Are Not Going to Vote Again!" Political Violence and Reform in Northern Kenya

In the months following the 2013 Kenyan elections there were multiple episodes of violence in Samburu County, including burning homes, shootings, livestock raids, violence targeting livelihoods, and hate speech. My central research question explores how these forms of violence relate to and are shaped by ongoing political reforms, focusing on the decentralization of political authority and governance to new county governments. I argue that decentralization was not a neutral, apolitical, technical process that simply changed the balance of political authority between national and regional institutions. Instead, the election of a new county government with increased powers over budgets, state resources, development projects, and public services, produced struggles around competing visions of regional and national sovereignty and citizenship. Decentralization has been profoundly shaped by national politics and long-standing debates in Kenya around independence, regional politics, marginalization, and belonging. While decentralization may have the capacity for creating political stabilities and increasing political participation, processes of reform also contain the potential for reproducing and enhancing political violence. This dissertation is based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Samburu County, drawing on interviews with residents, NGO staff, local leaders, and government officials, social media analysis, tracking local events and violence, and examination of political discourse. Building on anthropological approaches to violence, the state, and democracy, I critically examine democratic reform by highlighting resident’s lived experiences of violence and reform. Decentralization continues to be one of the dominant models for democratic reform implemented not only in Kenya, but across the African continent and globally. Taking into account the potential of reforms to contribute to violence, I suggest the need to pay closer attention to violence between election seasons and to rethink how governments, international organizations, observers, and researchers assess the outcomes of decentralization and constitutional reform. Focusing on lived experiences of peace and long-term political violence suggests a need to expand concepts of political and electoral violence to include violence in the years between elections. Governments, international organizations, policymakers, and researchers must reckon more fully with the potential for processes of reform to produce political violence, as well as create more democratic political outcomes.Cultural anthropologyDecentralization, Democracy, Governance, Kenya, Political Violence, ReformAnthropologyDegree Awarded: Ph.D. Anthropology. American Universit