Contentious Land Narratives and the Nonescalation of Election Violence: Evidence from Kenya’s Coast Region

Abstract

Abstract:This article examines the puzzle of the nonescalation of electoral violence. Drawing on evidence from Kenya’s Coast and Rift Valley regions, the article argues that land narratives along the coast create few motives for people to participate in electoral violence because residents do not link their land rights with electoral outcomes. Politicians thus have far less power to use land narratives to organize violence. Two factors help account for this regional variation between the Rift Valley and the Coast: the strength of the political patron and the proportion of “outsiders” relative to “insiders.”

Restrained or constrained? Elections, communal conflicts, and variation in sexual violence

“…Furthermore, each side associated elections with the possibility of eviction and loss of land, 'either through violent displacement during elections or through the exclusion of their party from power' (Klaus & Mitchell, 2015: 628). Land-insecure civilians were more likely to be victimized during post-election violence than their land-secure counterparts (Klaus, 2017). Prior to the 2007/8 clashes, Kenya had long been characterized by a gradual decline in the state's monopoly of violence (Mueller, 2008;Kagwanja, 2003;De Smedt, 2009).…”

Push, pull and push-back to land certification: regional dynamics in pilot certification projects in Côte d'Ivoire

“…Legacies of regional competition and ‘geopolitical logics’ of rule have biased both land policy and its distributive impact in rural settings. Such considerations strongly inform existing work on land politics and policy in many African contexts (Berman & Lonsdale 1992; Klopp 2002; Boone 2003, 2014; Colin et al 2009; Lavigne-Delville 2009; Gay 2014; Honig 2017; Klaus 2017; Lavers 2017; Bluwstein et al 2018; Fatema 2019; Lavigne-Delville & Moalic 2019), including work on Côte d'Ivoire (Dozon 1985; Affo Yapi 1987; Chauveau 2000, 2003, 2009; Koné 2006 a , 2006 b ; Ruf 2012, 2013; Colin 2013; Kouamé 2016; Tarrouth & Colin 2016; Montaz 2015, 2017). The current study takes this large body of literature as a starting point.…”

Land Conflict in Kenya: A Comprehensive Overview of Literature

“…A primary example of this is the continued use of state borders created by colonial occupiers in an effort to administer territories without taking into account previously existing land traditions (Boone 2012;Klaus 2017). Consistent with this perspective, Yamano and Deininger (2005: 1) also observe that "in many African countries, formal institutions for land administration were often simply superimposed on traditional structures without a clear delineation of responsibilities and competencies, implying that they lack both outreach and social legitimacy."…”

“…Because land occupies a central role in many African livelihoods, the growing scarcity of land is often framed within the contexts of "global land rush" (Dell'Angelo et al 2017;Scoones et al 2019) and has played a particular role in the politicization of narratives about land use and land ownership in Africa. In addition to being a valuable resource for many, people's identity and sense of belonging are intrinsically intertwined with land discourse (Klaus 2017;Watson 2019). This makes land a symbolic entity with varying interests, sometimes irreconcilable or nonnegotiable.…”

“…Similarly, southern African states such as Zimbabwe, South Africa and, to some extent, Botswana, are all experiencing pressure to review their land policies, some of which have taken anti-settler narratives (Kalabamu 2019). Meanwhile, political opportunism, "land grabs" 1 , and investor-driven large-scale land acquisition programs are believed to drive most of the discussions about land rules in many East African countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia (Klaus, 2017).…”