One Step Forward, Two Backward—Every Five Years: Electoral Violence and Peacebuilding in Kenya

Over the past twenty years or so, the peacebuilding enterprise has witnessed the development of many frameworks, models, strategies, fundamental assumptions and principles designed to achieve sustainable peace. Peacebuilding remains largely a eastern dominated concept, particularly at the ideation level, with the result that prescriptions on peacebuilding have been made by the epistemically dominant communities and subsequently criticized as one-size-fits-all (sometimes called “peacebuilding by IKEA”)—the liberal peace agenda. This criticism has been advanced because the obtaining social, political, economic, and cultural realities have fundamentally challenged such processes in various parts of the globe. In Kenya, for example, the peacebuilding industry has existed for over twenty years and has made certain strides, while also faltering in other aspects. One of the constraints to peacebuilding in the country has been the cyclical violence experienced in every election year since the early nineties. Hence the cliché of “every five years we start all over again.” This paper examines the infrastructures for peace in Kenya—particularly those that respond to electoral violence—and questions whether they address the root problem of the conflict. The application of Johan Galtung’s structural violence framework helps in answering the question: do peacebuilding efforts in Kenya address the structural problems? The paper benefits from making an exposition of the mandate, findings, and recommendations made by Commissions of Inquiry mounted after periods of electoral violence. This is done in order to determine the root causes of the violence and to look further into the programmatic nature of responses made by various peace actors. This study uses data from interviews conducted with stakeholders in the peacebuilding fraternity in Kenya. Secondary data, mainly documents and reports from various organizations and governments, are also used.