For Baba
There is an uneasiness about us in Kenya, a volatility in the air, a hard expression on people’s faces. I remember travelling to small countries to the west of us known for being ruled with an iron fist and felt a similar constriction there. I would return to Kenya and exhale, thanking the fates that I am free. That feeling is not as it once was, unfortunately, and we need to do something about it.
Widespread political instability and the latest wave of popular youth-led protest movements across the globe points to this discomfort being a widespread affair. Increasing economic and political constriction is putting pressure on the legitimacy of governments who appear dislocated from the majority. At the same time, empathy, or calls to share the risks of socio- economic precocity, have emerged as a radical act and, in some countries, it is treated as such.
But how did we get here? Why is it that mobilisation in the interests of citizens has become prohibitive unless their stance aligns with state narratives? How have we gotten to a point where expressing economic grievances is enough to make you persona non grata… or worse?
You have rights, yes…but they are mediated
I’ve been grappling with this issue for a while, and I’ve pieced together a perspective that might offer a useful lens for interpreting recent events in Kenya. To begin, we can look at the question of rights in the current dispensation, where Michel Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics become particularly relevant for two key reasons.
First, Foucault posits that the rise of neoliberalism after the post-war Keynesian turn involved the dividing between the citizen as a possessor of traditional rights on the one hand, and the development of what he calls the ‘homo oeconomicus’; where the citizen is seen mainly as an economic actor – almost like a small enterprise – whose life is shaped, often indirectly, by the market.
“[C]onsidering the subject as homo oeconomicus does not imply an anthropological iden1fica1on of any behaviour whatsoever with economic behaviour. It simply means that economic behaviour is the grid of intelligibility one will adopt on the behaviour of a new individual. It also means that the individual becomes governmentalisable, that power gets a hold on him to the extent, and only to the extent, that he is a homo oeconomicus.”
We have two distinct approaches to viewing the citizen when it comes to neo-liberal governmentality that exist in what Foucault labels a non-dialectical state; one that presents its actions as pragmatic and inevitable, rather than as the outcome of negotiation. This observation is important because it gives us a picture of how the economy has effectively ostracised itself from the political arena. Over the past forty years, we’ve seen traditional rights reshaped in a way that requires the state to step directly into the market, all to uphold an idea of substantive rights rooted in the belief that the market cannot fail. Ultimately, this means that a citizen’s ability to defend their rights has been increasingly limited by the economic, and the political economic, forms of power prevalent in that country or state.
“Economics steals away from the juridical form of the sovereign exercising sovereignty within a state precisely that which is emerging as the essential element of a society’s life, namely economic processes. Liberalism acquired its modem shape precisely with the formulation of this essential incompatibility between the non-totalisable multiplicity of economic subjects of interest and the totalising unity of the juridical sovereign.”
Foucault’s second point is that the rise of homo oeconomicus, the economic person, broke down the old separation between private life and the market. From then on, government operated through market logic, and the commodification of society accelerated. The state’s role became one of classifying, measuring, and managing social life, which made it easier to turn everything into a commodity and, in the process, stripped many things of their stable meaning. This crisis of meaning has driven social conflict and the othering of minorities; negative socio- political phenomena that are worsened by a fundamental inability to deal with the contradictions of capitalism and hostility towards the socialisation of risk. It has also resulted in greater control of our behaviour, particularly since the Arab Spring and the pandemic. We are told that we have never been richer or better off – yet, we have never been more alienated and dislocated.
In the West, this crisis of meaning has resulted in a swing to the right as majorities call for the return of traditional leadership to give them a sense of control. What emerges is reactive politics based on the othering of minorities because these leaders in fact do not have control over much else. We see this process in the US with its intransigent political polarisation and unqualified goons chasing people of colour around on the assumption that they are in the country illegally. We are also likely to see a similar crack down on any dissent from the left after the Trump administration’s designation of Antifa as a terror organisation. One has to question what a government is if they see an amorphous anti-fascist movement as the greatest enemy at home – but that is a subject for another day.
The Kenyan conundrum
In Kenya, our reaction to this pressure has been slightly different, due to our limited integration into the global economy and the prevalence of informality. Our formal political and economic structures are well integrated in the global system and define structural policy. This means that the same governmental logic outlined above holds here. However, this represents a fraction of what remains informal at the socio-political and economic levels. Peter Ekeh’s outline of the dislocated post-colonial state characterised by two publics is helpful here.
As Ekeh outlines, our post-colonial political leaders took on the British system of an ethnic logic of governance, which acted as the glue which linked the informal to the formal in terms of governance. Kenya’s political economy is founded on this interspace between the formal and informal, largely defining how the game is played. And while ethnicity is in no way a backward concept or something to be ‘westernised’ out of; our adoption of this colonial governmentality has led to a zero-sum political game that has plagued this country since independence. This is common knowledge here in Kenya. Our approach to informal governance, the underlying ethnic logic and the networks involved in the political-economic game, are exclusionary and conservative in nature. It excludes the majority of Kenyans from opportunities, eats away at public trust, and results in a political class no longer reflecting the interests of a younger and more cosmopolitan population who need a different approach to governance.
The 2010 Constitution, one of the most beautiful of its kind, was an attempt to balance local, ethnic, and national interests after a brutal critical juncture, the 2007 election and it’s aftermath, woke us up. The 2022 election was a reaction to old ethnic divides which was leveraged on expertly by political actors. Our youth have also shown that they are able to come together across the divides, and the strength that it gives their movement. Kenya needs to take the next step in defining citizenship in a way that allows for a national idea of Kenyaness to emerge, that can guide our governance and address outdated post-colonial divisions. We need to move towards the further operationalisation of our traditional rights, and the underlying values guiding how politicians deal with us and our informality, in a manner that is greater than the sum of its ethnic parts. Informality is an indication of freedom, and we need to revisit how we approach this realm, as opposed to being only passive observers.
Civil society as the driver of history
Foucault’s notes on the rise of biopolitics ends with the observation that only civil society can ensure a balance between the interests of the people and the market. This proposition highlights that, despite the complexity of our times, the ball stops at our willingness actively to defend our interests. Things may not be impossible, but they require potentially uncomfortable action, and a restatement of the immanence of political power in the people. Without advocacy, without consulting the citizen, and without the relevant consensus building approaches, the market and the political economy structures through which it is mediated will dominate. This is increasingly what we are seeing today; austerity on the one hand, and increased hostility amongst ethnic representatives on the political stage on the other.
The idea of civil society emerged from the civic republicanism of the late 18th century, in response to the fear that the growing mercantilist system was leading to a sort of economic or financial tyranny at the expense of the liberty of the citizens. Hume and Adam Smith accepted the need to recognise the infallibility of the market and the utilitarianism which allowed for its new governmentality. However, Scottish thinker Adam Ferguson refused to let go of the romantic and very human idea of liberty.
Ferguson saw civil society as the driver of the history of civilisations and defined it not just as a non-governmental group. He saw civil society as the conglomeration of socio-political groups and their representatives, as well as the state structures and legislative tools which emerge from this dynamic. That is society and the state as being a reflection of civil society held together by what he called a shared civic virtue.
Civil society is the very zone of contestation and consensus building at multiple levels culminating in the legislative bodies of a republican state, a state without a king. The health of civil society is determined by the efficiency of representation, whether it reflects the polity, and its ability to debate, to discuss, to deliberate over governance in a way that produces something that is greater than the sum of its parts. The health of civil society defines the health of the state. According to Ferguson, when Rome was a true republic, when it replaced its kings with legitimate representatives, it was at its strongest because civil society was dynamic. When Augustus emerged at the end of the Republic and the start of the post-Caesarean Principate, there was an uneasy death of this fundamental dynamism even though they still used the language of the republic. Tiberius, Nero, and Caligula emerged from the political dislocation that followed. We currently suffer from a similar cognitive dissonance when it comes to the idea of political and economic liberty.
Ferguson’s views on civil society also informs his definition of political freedom, representation, and civic virtue. He saw freedom as “the right to do whatever laws permit.” This was underpinned by the idea that freedom depends on a person’s ability to influence the creation of any new legislation or political structure through effective representation. Without this, laws become tyrannical, and as Montesquieu pointed out, these kinds of laws often spread quickly. The wealth of a country like Kenya, which does not have the necessary extractives sector upon which to build a viable dystopian society of control, is in its people and their momentum. Civil society and its ability to inform governance is key to supporting this dynamism. A lack of substantive consultation between the people and the political class will only exacerbate societal friction and economic inefficiency going forward.
Towards a political recalibration
A state is in a constant process of renewal and change. Kenyans, both the political class and citizens, would benefit from addressing the issues of how to protect citizen rights effectively and the recalibration of our political economy. This will allow us to avoid being further corralled into a hazardous socio-political environment characterised by ethnic tension, economic constriction, and increased state control.
The government needs to find substantive ways to bridge the divide between the state and citizen. This would require genuine engagement around how to develop new consensus – building approaches that allow for non-ethnic constituencies to be integrated into governmental logic. Part of this process would need the state to allow for organic leadership and representatives to emerge, rather than choosing oppression and co-optation. This is not a simple task, however, and it would require a certain level of civic disinterestedness from our current leadership.
Emergent political forces such as the youth are, unfortunately, in a precarious situation at the moment. Based on my experience during the heady days of the Arab Spring and subsequent exploration of political change, I would like to put forward that leadership is part of the red sulphur needed to galvanise their movement. An organic and horizontally led grouping such as the Gen Z needs leadership to act as a centrifugal force, not through control, but as means of representation and accountability. One would advise them not to try and find this from amongst themselves, as this is where most groups are cannibalised and infiltrated. They can avoid this by selecting their formal leaders, or representatives, from the periphery of the political class who align best with their vision, and then hold them accountable as hell.
This will also allow their representatives to act as an effective conduit between the streets and formal political structures. While this points to a longer-term strategic approach and may take time to solidify at the structural level, the lack of an effective opposition force since the 2018 fuel levy, and the recent passing of Raila Amolo Odinga, means that there is a space on the political landscape that is waiting to be occupied.
This brings us to the need to revisit our collective vision for our country. As mentioned above, a civil movement such as Gen Z, and civil society as whole for that matter, need values to guide them and a manifesto to operationalise those values. On what is our citizenship based, and how does this impact our values and expectations when it comes to the way politicians approach informality (à la Ekeh)? How can the political economy, as outlined above, be reformed based on these values?
Finally, returning to Foucault, developing the new values shaping Kenyan citizenship and the state may require citizens to help define the country’s economic direction. While the debt pressure we face is largely the result of infrastructure borrowing during past administrations and remains unavoidable, the manner in which we approach balancing the books needs a human face.Here, questions around economic governance take centre stage. These could relate to public goods, such as health and education, and the limits we set on reform and privatisation. It could also be linked to values such as the equality of opportunity and how the state can support viable growth while balancing the books. This process can help to address our current economic impasse and to secure Kenya’s place as a major innovator on the governance front in Africa.
Parvez Sheikh is a Kenyan political consultant with extensive experience advising clients across the Continent. He holds a Master’s in Political Science from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
