Contextual Influences on Voting Decision: Mapping the Neighbourhood Effect in a Multi-Ethnic Rural Setting in Kenya

Abstract

This research investigated the neighbourhood effect hypothesis in the context of the 1992 and subsequent 1997 and 2000 elections in Kwanza constituency, Kenya by examining the influence of voters' local contexts on their voting decisions. The findings of the research indicated that while the voters were alive to local conditions and issues, it is the political dynamics and conditions obtaining at higher levels in the wider political contexts at the constituency and national levels, underpinned by ethnic antagonisms defined within contexts of the struggles for national political power and patronage, that influenced their voting decisions more profoundly. Utilising ecological and individual-level data, the results indicated that ethnicity rather than voters' local contexts per se was the most salient factor in influencing voting decisions, not least because it determined voters' patterns of social and geographical interaction as well as mutual political communication.

Efforts of Different Regimes in Kenya Toward National Cohesion and Integration, 1963-2022

“…Since her independence in 1963, Kenya has had challenges in putting together her ethnic communities. Conflict always arises as a result of the unequal distribution of resources (Simiyu, 2008). The author argues that challenges of ethnicity are exacerbated by failure in nation building and the creation of a national identity.…”