ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to develop a framework for analyzing the role of the state during decolonization in Kenya. Decolonization has emerged as a major focus for students of African history and politics and, more broadly, for those interested in problems of development and underdevelopment. Numerous theories have emerged concerning the development process and particular components within it, such as decolonization. Scholars of decolonization shared the epistemological foundations of modernization theory. Modernization theory utilizes pattern variables based on Parsonian sociology. The ‘modernization’ and ‘dependence’ models appear to be diametrically opposed, to have nothing in common with each other. The most common expression of this instrumentalism has been the view of the colonial state as representing the interests of the “metropolitan bourgeoisie.” To be effective as a mechanism for linking peripheral economies to the international economy, colonial domination had to be translated into terms of the indigenous political economies.
