ABSTRACT

Kenya's storied history, for the first half-century of its existence as an independent state (1963 to 2013), has, like most of its African peers, been one with more challenge than opportunity. A more complex issue was the concept of government in the newly independent Kenya. Prior to 1963, the general experience of and with government for most African countries was primarily negative: that is, the colonial government. In the case of Kenya, Bohman's critique especially of the conditions and articulation of democracy, through political parties, is useful to highlight. Consociational democracy arises from the idea of consociational theory, which "seeks to explain the existence of political stability in certain countries with deeply fragmented political cultures. It comprises of a set of propositions concerning the two main aspects of such political systems: their political sociology and the nature of their political elites' behavior". Ethnicity can be a good thing and can also be the foundation for a consociational democratic order.