Kenya 2013-2014: From election monitoring to longer-term reform

该项目旨在使英国政府更好地了解如何促进肯尼亚的和平与民主，并利用2013年肯尼亚选举的经验教训，帮助一系列国际政府和决策者制定更好的民主促进和避免冲突的策略。肯尼亚2013年的选举被广泛视为对捐助者干预和新的制度安排的影响的关键考验，以实现和平与可信的选举。在2007年有争议的选举和随后的暴力事件之后，一项实质性的政治改革计划被起草，旨在确保民主巩固和制度更新相结合，以防止此类暴力事件或引发暴力事件的渎职行为再次发生。这些国际支持的改革包括一部新宪法和一系列关于政党和选举的新立法，以及安全部门改革、司法改革和一个全新的选举委员会。广泛的双边政党、国际机构和肯尼亚民间社会团体为这些影响深远的进程以及2013年的选举本身提供了大量的外部支持。总而言之，这是一次非同寻常的持续和全面的治理重塑尝试——所有这些都是在没有任何政权更迭的情况下进行的，而且是在单一议会的生命周期内进行的。然而，已经很清楚的是，这些改革的影响是不平衡的。在选举前夕，立法框架的关键部分被取消，而安全改革从未真正进行过。因此，选举的进行提供了宝贵的证据，证明这种法律和体制改革方案以及选举支助是否、在多大程度上以及以何种方式能够产生政治变革。这个项目将根据选举本身的事件分析这一国际和国家努力的效力。它将利用这一分析拟订进一步支助肯尼亚改革和选举进程的建议，并为其他地方的改革和选举支助方案确定比较的经验教训。这些建议将针对肯尼亚在英国政府和其他政府和机构中的国际合作伙伴，以及直接参与改革进程的肯尼亚人——无论是在政府内部，还是作为民间社会组织的一部分。该项目直接建立在英国政府决策者和一组学术研究人员之间的新兴合作的基础上，并将发展这种合作。通过这种伙伴关系，英国政府——通过非洲冲突预防基金（ACPP）——目前正在资助Lynch、Cheeseman和Willis对肯尼亚选举的第一阶段研究。这项研究是直接通知英国政府的应急计划和当前的选举支持工作，通过报告和定期会议的研究人员和工作人员之间的FCO， DfID和MoD，在英国和肯尼亚。通过报告的分发和会议，这项研究也与英国的国际伙伴、一些国际机构以及肯尼亚的民间社会组织分享。因此，该项目将产生现实世界的影响，将超越肯尼亚和英国。该项目已经提供了关于选举的大量数据，并与英国、肯尼亚和更广泛的研究用户建立了联系网络。知识交流阶段将确保这种以研究为基础的知识有效地用于进一步促进肯尼亚的改革，并将从中吸取的经验教训应用于其他国家的政治改革和巩固民主的方案。

This project aims to enable the UK government to better understand how to promote peace and democracy in Kenya, and to use the lessons of the Kenyan election of 2013 to help a range of international governments and policy makers to develop better democracy promotion and conflict avoidance strategies. Kenya's 2013 elections have widely been seen as a crucial test of the impact of donor interventions and new institutional arrangements to deliver peaceful and credible elections. In the aftermath of the disputed elections of 2007 and the violence that followed, a substantial programme of political reform was drawn up, which intended to ensure a combination of democratic consolidation and institutional renewal that would prevent any repeat of such violence, or of the malpractice which helped to trigger it. These internationally supported changes included a new constitution and a raft of new legislation on political parties and elections, as well as security sector reform, a transformation of the judiciary and an entirely new election commission.A wide range of bilateral parties, international agencies, and Kenyan civil society groups, provided substantial external support for these far-reaching processes, and for the 2013 elections themselves. In all, this amounts to an unusually sustained and comprehensive attempt to remake governance - all conducted without any change of regime, and in the life of a single parliament. Yet it is already clear that the impact of these reforms has been uneven. In the run up to the election, key parts of the legislative framework were removed, while security reform was never genuinely pursued. The conduct of the elections thus provides valuable evidence as to whether, how far, and in what ways this kind of programme of legal and institutional reform and electoral support can produce political transformation.This project will analyse the effectiveness of this international and national effort in the light of the events of the election itself. It will use this analysis to develop recommendations for further support to reform and electoral processes in Kenya, and to identify comparative lessons for programmes of reform and electoral support elsewhere. The recommendations will be aimed both at Kenya's international partners in the UK government and in other governments and agencies, and at Kenyans directly involved in the reform process - whether within government, or as part of civil society organizations. The project builds directly on, and will develop, an emerging cooperation between policy-makers in the UK government and a group of academic researchers. Through this partnership, the UK government - through the Africa Conflict Prevention Pool (ACPP) - is currently funding the first phase of this research on the Kenya elections by Lynch, Cheeseman and Willis. This research is directly informing UK government contingency planning and current electoral support work through reports and regular meetings between the researchers and staff from the FCO, DfID and MoD, in the UK and in Kenya. Through circulation of reports and through meetings, the research is also being shared with the UK's international partners, and with some international agencies as well as with civil society organizations in Kenya. As a result, the project will have a real world impact that will extend beyond Kenya and the UK. The project has already provided a substantial body of data on the elections, and has generated a network of contacts with research-users in the UK, Kenya and more widely. The knowledge exchange phase will ensure that this research-based knowledge is used effectively in further promoting reform in Kenya, and in applying the lessons learned from this to programmes of political reform and democratic consolidation in other countries.