Courting genocide: Populism, ethno-nationalism and the informalisation of violence in Kenya's 2008 post-election crisis
Courting genocide: Populism, ethno-nationalism and the informalisation of violence in Kenya's 2008 post-election crisis
复制标题
引发种族灭绝：2008 年肯尼亚选举后危机中的民粹主义、民族主义和暴力的非正式化
DOI：
10.1080/02589000903187024
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发表时间：
2009
影响因子：
1.1
通讯作者：
P. Kagwanja
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
P. Kagwanja
摘要肯尼亚早在2007年12月27日有争议的选举之前就已经处于悬崖边缘，那次选举引发了灾难性的选举后暴力事件，将非洲最有希望的民主国家之一带到了国家失败的边缘。这篇文章将2008年的危机追溯到根深蒂固的遗产，即在多党制的肯尼亚精英内部争夺国家权力的斗争中，种族工具化和暴力信息化。在后莫伊时代，该国四分五裂的权力精英不仅未能就如何解决贫困、不平等、腐败以及宪法和机构改革的必要性达成一致，而且也未能根除国家外暴力的遗留问题。在2007年的选举之前，精英们为选举后的危机埋下了温床，当时他们转向民粹主义和死灰复燃的种族民族主义，以赢得肯尼亚竞争最激烈的选举。这份报告审查了在危机期间该国许多地区国家衰落后，涉及民兵、犯罪团伙和国家安全机构的暴力的突变和扩散。尽管在2008年签署了一项权力分享协议并成立了选举后暴力调查委员会之后，精英们达成了休战协议，但联合政府内部精英之间的权力斗争势在必行，这阻碍了结束与非正式暴力有关的有罪不罚的努力。这篇文章质疑了流行的神话--“权力下放”是结束腐败、不平等和权力和资源集中的战略，这些权力和资源被指责为暴力无处不在的罪魁祸首。它主张进行根本性改革，解除总统权力的个人化，加强公共机构，创建有效的法律体系，以对抗民粹主义、种族民族主义和国家外暴力不受惩罚的文化。
Abstract Kenya was already on the precipice long before the disputed 27 December 2007 election, which sparked the cataclysmic post-election violence that brought one of Africa's most promising democracies to the brink of state failure. This contribution traces the 2008 crisis back to the deeply ingrained legacy of instrumentalisation of ethnicity and informalisation of violence in the intra-elite struggle for state power in multiparty Kenya. The country's fragmented power elite in the post-Moi era not only failed to agree on how to address poverty, inequality, corruption and the need for constitutional and institutional reforms, but also failed to eradicate the legacy of extra-state violence. The elite laid the seedbed for the post-election crisis in the run up to the 2007 election when it turned to populism and resurgent ethno-nationalism in a deadly battle to win Kenya's most closely contested election. The contribution examines the mutation and diffusion of violence involving militias, criminal gangs and state security agencies following the withering away of the state in many parts of the country during the crisis. Despite the ‘elite truce’ that followed the signing of a power-sharing deal in 2008 and the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, the imperatives of intra-elite power tussles within the unity government have frustrated efforts to end impunity relating to informal violence. The contribution questions the popular mythology of ‘decentralisation’ as a strategy of ending corruption, inequality and concentration of power and resources blamed for the ubiquity of violence. It argues for fundamental reforms, depersonalisation of presidential powers, strengthening of public institutions and the creation of an effective legal system to counter populism, ethno-nationalism and the culture of impunity for extra-state violence.