Doctoral Degrees (Political Science)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Political Science) by browse.metadata.advisor "Khadiagala, Gilbert Muruli"

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    Foreign aid in Africa: analysing the role of European Union political aid in political processes in Kenya, 1990-2013
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12) Musila, Benson; Khadiagala, Gilbert Muruli
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigated contributions as well as limitations of EU political aid in processes of political development in Kenya since the onset of political pluralism in the early 1990s to mid-2016. The study sought to advance extant debates about the role of exogenous versus endogenous factors during Africa’s third wave of democracy. Hence, the questions: What have been the contributions as well as limitations of EU political aid toward processes of political development in Kenya since the early 1990s? The study reveals that initially the EU supported liberalization in Kenya in the after-math of the cold war. However, this support was of a very superficial kind; it could not sustain the difficult, yet necessary task of institution-building. In the specific Kenyan case EU political aid in the early 1990s focused on bolstering domestic civil society in its struggle against the Moi dictatorship. While this should have been the first phase of a multifaceted undertaking, the EU and others did not then move onto what should have been the next phase in this journey: institutionalization. Whether this would have actually happened, given the fumbling that characterized the 1990s is an open question. In any case, the emergence of the war on terror on the global agenda after the events of September 2001 completely closed this avenue. Although the international community had quickly ogled institution development as the key international agenda for the 21st century in the wake of the attacks, between 2001-2007 there was no serious political aid effort towards institution building in Kenya, save for the construction of institutions keyed to the war on terrorism; how else, to explain the failure to press the Kenya government to effect constitutional and other institutional reforms as promised after the 2002 elections? This neglect would prove costly; it contributed in no small measure to the post-election crisis of 2007-08; after all, that conflict issued from a failure of institutions both during the contested tallying of votes, and the subsequent eruption of violence. It would require the NARA and then agenda number 4 to begin to address these issues, with the crisis having focused attention on the need for institution building, reminding even those with vested interests in Kenya that the status quo had become untenable. There is some irony here: in pursuit of self-interest the EU may actually now help erect robust institutions in the wake of the post-election crisis. If so, then it remains to be seen what type of institutions and structures will emerge under realism—whether as the war on terrorism and the attendant institutional infrastructure suggests these will be repressive institutions, or whether perhaps self-interest and altruism will combine to help create both participative and procedural norms that will underpin a more robust state in Kenya. One of the main criticisms usually levelled against foreign aid—political aid included—is that it is too narrowly focused on technical aspects to the exclusion of political ones. In other words, the claim is usually made that current foreign aid merely represents a reincarnation of foreign aid of old—that of the 1960s—in the Huntingtonian frame. This study has diverged from that school of thought to argue that currently foreign aid has actually swung in the opposite direction—it is overly focused on political aspects—participation in this case—to the exclusion of technocratic aspects, conceptualized as institutionalization. Yet a better view of development and the role of foreign aid in it would have to reconcile the need for participation, on the one hand, and that of effectiveness, on the other—cognizant of the fact that development is a bi-product of the interaction between structure and agency. Thus, the study argues against the old Huntingtonian singular focus on institutionalization to the exclusion of participation—the failure of development administration, with its obsession with institutionalization to the exclusion of politics testifies to the short-comings of such an attempt. On the other hand, however, the study also cautions against current critiques, which seem to celebrate agency, while viewing institutionalization–structures—askance—or what such critiques have taken to pejoratively referring to as the “technical approach”. As the events from Kenya illustrate, a singular focus on participation to the neglect of institutions is likely to result in the elevation of process over structure—with dire consequences for political development. Thus to suffice, participation must go hand-in- hand with institution building.