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Why has Kenya not Experienced a Full-blown Civil War?
By M. S. Kimenyi & N. S. Ndung
Bilge Nisa Buyukkasap
Sporadic Ethnic Violence

›A civil war occurs when a trigger factor/combination of factors results in a “tipping point”
›
›Tipping Point: factions in a society engaging in an all-out armed conflict.

Collier and Hoeffler
›“CH model”
›Systematic analysis of the casual factors of civil war initiation, duration, and recurrence
›Empirical support for «opportunity cost» explanation of civil war onset

›Unlike the most of the countries in Africa, Kenya has neither been under military dictatorship nor
experienced any major internal problem that could be referred as a civil war.
›However Kenya had gone through «ethnic clashes» which
›Didn’t last long.
›Localized in limited geographical areas
›Did not involve rebel groups fighting to dislodge governments.
›

«example of peace and stability»



Ethnic Violence in Kenya
›Started in 1991
›Sporadic ethnic violence
›Serious threat to the existence of a united Kenyan nation, the rule of law, and the institutions
of private property, and market economy
›PARADOX!

Why is «ethnic violence» a paradox?
›Didn’t involve significant numbers of any ethnic community against each other.
›Although the targets are from specific ethnic groups, the aggressors can be hardly qualified as an
ethnic group.
›

Causes of the Violence
›Ethnicity
›Land
›Politics

Ethnicity
›At least 42 distinct tribal groups
›Ethnic hatred linked to electoral politics and competition among the new arrivals in the region
›

Land
›Seen as the primary source of the ethnic clashes
›Political independence was negotiated without resolving the land issue.
›Positive correlation between violence and the amount of land that had been alienated by the
colonists

But…
›The violence occurred in small-scale farms with large populations.
›
›Alienation of the lands is not related to the ethnic groups that are responsible for the violence.
›

Politics
›Failure of public institutions to accommodate diverse interests
›The lack of political models to deal with diversity in centralized states where competition for
resources and power is prevalent leads to conflicts
›

›Until 1991, Kenya was under a one-party rule and  excessive centralization. Towards the end of
1991, people of Kenya had risen for a change of regime which resulted with a massive bloodshed by
the government.
›
›States in political transition experience more violence.
›

›The government secretly employed ethnic militants to attack the supporters of opposition parties.
›Introduction of democracy would affect their financial fortunes.
›Opposition was keen prosecuting the members of government.
›Pre-elections showed that the current government was likely to lose power.

Why Has Kenya Not Experienced Civil War?



›Ethnic Heterogeneity?
›these groups live together in urban areas.
›Problems are not large enough to trigger a war.
›Most regions are relatively homogeneous.
›The society is highly fractionalized. Most of the tribes contain subtribes in them. Safety in
highly fractionalized societies is due to the high transaction costs of collective action.

›Land issue?
›Only a small part of the country and a few ethnic groups are affected.
›Violence has not been directed at government.
›The inability to organize a counter to these ethnic  clashes explains their sporadic nature.

›Economic gain?
›no guarantees that those involved in the conflict would benefit themselves
›Those who takes a part in fighting face the cost but the benefits are spread among the group
›

›Political expediency?
›The ruling party had to solve the problem of the instability that they created to gain the power
in order to prevent production getting affected negatively.

conclusion
›Why the conficts didn’t evolve into civil wars can partly be explained by CH model.


Thank You!