Thomas Jefferson in Nairobi: The United States, Kenya, and the Democratization Debate

This work is an intellectual history focussing on the ideas surrounding the implementation of democratic systems in Africa, and specifically Kenya, at the end of the cold war. Taking the constitutional change to multi-party politics in Kenya in late 1991 as its fulcrum, this work examines the ideas about democracy put forth by politicians and policy-making circles in the United States and Kenya during this period. The work begins with an examination of the attitudes toward democracy in Africa as expressed at the U.S. congressional hearings on aid to Africa in 1991, and ends with an afterward looking at the ideology surrounding democracy in the wake of the 2007 election violence in Kenya