The plunging of Kenya, until recently a centre of stability and growth in East Africa, into political and economic uncertainty following the general election of December 2007 is regarded as a major cause for global and African concern. It is widely accepted that the elections were deeply flawed, and that there was electoral malfeasance by all the major players. President Kibaki's rapid declaration of victory in the face of a heavily disputed election and his determination to hold on to the levers of state power precipitated a deadly crisis, communal violence and economic decline. A power-sharing deal between Kibaki and Opposition leader, Raila Odinga signed in February seems to be holding, but Kenya ranks among the worlds’ growing number of democracies at-risk. This book takes a new look at the 2007 election, the post-election crisis, the underlying interaction of ethnicity, class and political power; forced displacement, the role of international forces; and the country’s power-sharing arrangement. The study will draw upon the expertise of a variety of leading experts on Kenya, and will be edited by Peter Kagwanja and Roger Southall. The overall project was based on a workshop in Nairobi on 6-7 December 2008. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.

Barack Obama’s political ascendancy has focused considerable global attention on the history of Kenya generally and the history of the Luo community particularly. From politicos populating the blogosphere and bookshelves in the U.S and Kenya, to tourists traipsing through Obama’s ancestral home, a variety of groups have mobilized new readings of Kenya’s past in service of their own ends. Through narratives placing Obama into a simplified, sweeping narrative of anticolonial barbarism and postcolonial “tribal” violence, the story of the United States president’s nuanced relationship to Kenya has been lost amid stereotypical portrayals of Africa. At the same time, Kenyan state officials have aimed to weave Obama into the contested narrative of Kenyan nationhood. Matthew Carotenuto and Katherine Luongo argue that efforts to cast Obama as a “son of the soil” of the Lake Victoria basin invite insights into the politicized uses of Kenya’s past. Ideal for classroom use and directed at a general readership interested in global affairs, Obama and Kenya offers an important counterpoint to the many popular but inaccurate texts about Kenya’s history and Obama’s place in it as well as focused, thematic analyses of contemporary debates about ethnic politics, “tribal” identities, postcolonial governance, and U.S. African relations.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

This book provides an account of how the responsibility to protect (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) were applied in Kenya. In the aftermath of the disputed presidential election on 27 December 2007, Kenya descended into its worst crisis since independence. The 2007-08 post-election crisis in Kenya was among the first situations in which there was an appeal to both the responsibility to protect and a responsibility to prosecute. Despite efforts to ensure compatibility between R2P and the ICC, the two were far from coherent in this case, as the measures designed to protect the population in Kenya undermined the efforts to prosecute perpetrators. This book will highlight how the African Union-sponsored mediation process effectively brought an end to eight weeks of bloodshed, while simultaneously entrenching those involved in orchestrating the violence. Having secured positions of power, politicians bearing responsibility for the violence set out to block prosecutions at both the domestic and international levels, eventually leading the cases against them to unravel. As this book will reveal, by utilising the machinery of the state as a shield against prosecution, the Government of Kenya reverted to an approach to sovereignty that both R2P and the ICC were specifically designed to counteract. This book will be of interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, humanitarian intervention, African politics, war and conflict studies and IR/Security Studies in general.