ABSTRACT
Legitimacy is the right a government has to influence the behavior of its citizens because they accept its authority. The interrelated factors of hegemonial rule, deinstitutionalization, and personalization of the state's distributional function inevitably lead to a serious loss in legitimacy by the incumbent regime. In general, the politics in East Africa can be characterized as a perennial struggle by the state to ensure its legitimacy and hegemony over varied groups whose loyalties were primarily directed towards their ethno-regional origins. Political legitimacy during the immediate independence era was guaranteed by the emotional resource of nationalism and the call for national unity in the face of nation-building and economic development challenges. In Kenya, the establishment of junior ministries with attendant perquisites, appointments to parastatals, and a liberal delivery of resources to specific constituencies has been used to ensure majority status and thereby legitimacy.
