Introduction: Ethnicity and Politics in Kenya

Abstract

The chapter nuances the nexus of ethnic nationalism, competi-tion for state control and fragmented tribal alliances in Kenya. It highlights the link between politics devoid of principles, ethnic-based political parties and state fragility in Kenya. The chapter traces the instrumentalisation of tribalism by Kenya's successive governments to the stratagem of divide and rule by the British colonialists. However, it argues that Kenyan post-colonial politicians rationally mobilised along ethnicity for personal gain owing to their retention of the discriminatory and alienating colonial state. Kenya's ethnic politics was not predetermined. The centralised state, the lack of a regulated political party system and the absence political will to enforce the rule of law and the persistence of exclusive politics, made the appeal to eth-nicity almost inevitable. However, the masses are not simply victims of false consciousness devoid of agency in this combustible identity politics.