Understanding the economic foundations of ongoing protests in Kenya

Popular discontent, intra-elite distributive politics, and possible ways forward

Nearly all of An Africanist Perspective is free content. My goal here is to think through important structural issues that are not in the headlines with readers from Dakar, to Abuja, to Dar es Salaam. In addition, there is revealed demand for content on issues in the headlines — like what I cover in this post. Moving forward, these “current affairs” posts will be gated and only accessible to paid subscribers. Paywalls will come down a month after gated posts go up.

I: The Kenyan experience of the global cost-of-living crisis

This past week Kenya witnessed some of the deadliest protests in years. Beginning in March, the leading coalition of opposition parties, Azimio la Umoja (Azimio), mobilized Kenyans to go to the streets, ostensibly to protest the cost of living crisis that is gripping the country. President William Ruto’s proposed tax measures in the 2023 Finance Bill added fuel to the protests. In line with historical patterns, the protests degenerated into running battles between p…