Youth And Peaceful Elections In Kenya

Elections provide a tremendous opportunity for national transformation and the pursuit of democratic practice. They can be a moment of national renewal. However, in most of Africa elections are often characterized by violent conflict as politicians seek to capture or maintain power through ethnic mobilization, propaganda and misrepresentation. Considering opportunities offered by information technology especially mobile phones and the discovery of extensive natural resources, Africa has an opportunity to significantly change the lives of ordinary citizens. But this transformation requires that youth are fully 'present' in the political, economic, social and cultural arenas. They will need to marshal their energies and stay focused on the things that are important for the continent of Africa. In the case of Kenya, youth should not wait to be invited to take up political leadership. Instead, they will need to invite themselves to the table and take advantage of the opportunity provided in Constitution and demand accountability and transparency in the conduct of national affairs. This book is part of ongoing work at Twaweza Communications in the pursuit of democracy, peace and justice. Themes covered include youth and leadership; elections and peace; youth as peace makers; family and global values among other topics. - See more at: http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/youth-and-peaceful-elections-in-kenya#sthash.viKqWxE2.dpuf

During the run-up to Kenya's 2013 general elections, crucial political and civic questions were raised. Could past mistakes, especially political and ethnic-related violence, be avoided this time round? Would the spectre of the 2007 post-electoral violence positively or negatively affect debates and voting? How would politicians, electoral bodies such as the IEBC, the Kenyan civil society, and the international community weigh in on the elections? More generally, would the 2013 elections bear witness to the building up of an electoral culture in Kenya, characterized by free and fair elections, or would it show that voting is still weakened by political malpractices, partisan opinions and emotional reactions? Would Kenya's past be inescapable or would it prepare the scene for a new political order? Kenyaís Past as Prologue adopts a multidisciplinary perspective ñ mainly built upon field-based ethnography and a selection of case studies ñ to answer these questions. Under the leadership of the French Institute for Research in Africa (Institut francais de recherche en Afrique, IFRA), political scientists, historians and anthropologists explore various aspects of the electoral process to contribute in-depth analyses of the last elections. They highlight the structural factors underlying election and voting in Kenya including the political system, culture and political transition. They also interrogate the short-term trends and issues that influence the new political order. The book provides insight into specific case studies, situations and contexts, thus bringing nuances and diversity into focus to better assess Kenya's evolving electoral democracy.

Comparative Case Studies: New Designs and Directions extends the comparative case study methodology established by Bartlett and Vavrus and employed in many areas of social research, especially in education. This volume unites a diverse, international group of education scholars whose work exemplifies the affordances and constraints of the comparative case study (CCS) approach and offers new theoretical and empirical directions for researchers. In 11 engaging chapters, experts in comparative education, early childhood education, peace education, refugee education, special education, and teacher education discuss their use of the CCS approach to produce new ways of knowing and to address challenges of multi-scalar and multi-sited research. The first section, Conceptualizing Cases and Case Selection, emphasizes the importance of carefully selecting cases during different phases of research while continuously reflecting on how these choices influence the findings. The second section, Balancing Specificity and Generalizability, addresses the challenge of balancing the need for rich, deep data while including multiple sites. The third section, Enabling Processual Analysis across Sites and Scales, demonstrates the fit between the CCS approach and qualitative research that unfolds over time and space. Addressing the Transversal Axis, the fourth section, showcases research with a strong temporal dimension. The final section, New Directions, suggests inspiring and innovative methods. Offering rich methodological examples and provocative discussion questions, this volume will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students in education and research design courses, and to scholars and policymakers in diverse fields seeking to design studies of complex phenomena at different sites and scales.

This book seeks to examine how successful models of building 'peace from within' in the African context function. It draws emerging lessons to provide critical recommendations on policy, practice and academia - our primary audience. While there are numerous examples of failures of conflict resolution in Africa, shown by intractable conflict axes, less attention is paid to successes. While acknowledging the challenges that exist, this edited volume provides positive examples of building peace from within in fragile contexts through many forms of initiatives and actions at different levels: community-based (through individual and/or collective local peace initiatives), government (through ministries and/or departments), and regional (through external and/or multilateral infrastructure for peace). As a guiding principle the notion of building peace from within draws from the idea of community regeneration, which describes voluntary and peaceful activities of grassroots actors that reflect their broader interests of building peaceful communities and existence.

Elections have emerged as one of the most important, and most contentious, features of political life on the African continent. In the first half of this decade, there were more than 20 national elections, serving largely as capstones of peace processes or transitions to democracies. The outcomes of these and more recent elections have been remarkably varied, and the relationship between elections and conflict management is widely debated throughout Africa and among international observers. Elections can either help reduce tensions by reconstituting legitimate government, or they can exacerbate them by further polarizing highly conflictual societies. This timely volume examines the relationship between elections, especially electoral systems, and conflict management in Africa, while also serving as an important reference for other regions. The book brings together for the first time the latest thinking on the many different roles elections can play in democratization and conflict management.

One-third of today’s generation of youth—those ages ten to twenty-four—live in fragile or conflicted countries and are susceptible to the sway of ideological narratives of violent extremism. Evidence suggests, however, that they also play active and valuable roles as agents of positive and constructive change. Youth from Kenya’s low-income communities can play an active and positive role in making their communities better through generating knowledge that contributes to local peacebuilding efforts.

Multiparty elections have become the bellwether by which all democracies are judged, and the spread of these systems across Africa has been widely hailed as a sign of the continent’s progress towards stability and prosperity. But such elections bring their own challenges, particularly the often intense internecine violence following disputed results. While the consequences of such violence can be profound, undermining the legitimacy of the democratic process and in some cases plunging countries into civil war or renewed dictatorship, little is known about the causes. By mapping, analysing and comparing instances of election violence in different localities across Africa – including Kenya, Ivory Coast and Uganda – this collection of detailed case studies sheds light on the underlying dynamics and sub-national causes behind electoral conflicts, revealing them to be the result of a complex interplay between democratisation and the older, patronage-based system of ‘Big Man’ politics. Essential for scholars and policymakers across the social sciences and humanities interested in democratization, peace-keeping and peace studies, Violence in African Elections provides important insights into why some communities prove more prone to electoral violence than others, offering practical suggestions for preventing violence through improved electoral monitoring, voter education, and international assistance.