'Holding against the tide': The varying fortunes of bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness in Kenya

TY - CHAP

T1 - 'Holding against the tide'

T2 - The varying fortunes of bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness in Kenya

AU - Tyce, Matthew

PY - 2023/5

Y1 - 2023/5

N2 - This chapter explores the factors that have influenced the performance of the Central Bank of Kenya, Kenya Revenue Authority, and National Treasury since the 1990s, all of which were identified as potential examples of ‘pockets of effectiveness’ in the Kenyan context. The chapter finds that Kenya’s ‘dispersed’ political settlement (which moved from a ‘narrow’ to ‘broad’ social foundation during the chapter’s period of analysis) creates an environment that is generally not conducive to concerted, longer-term investments in state capacity, as ruling elites tend to be preoccupied with shorter-term efforts to keep themselves in power and lack sufficient enforcement powers to discipline or centralize rent-seeking. Although these political pressures have been felt by the three case-study organizations, other factors have meant that the degree of autonomy that these organizations have been able to maintain has varied significantly, both between the organizations and within the same organizations over time. These factors go beyond each organization’s formal autonomy to include the nature and embeddedness of its leadership. Transnational factors have also been important, notably the extent to which these organizations have been subject to the disciplinary logics of global neoliberalism. Finally, ideational factors have helped to buttress the autonomy of these organizations, at least during particular periods, as policy coalitions composed of politicians and technocrats (drawing on, but not beholden to, donor support) have occasionally come together around shared developmental ideas to try and protect these organizations—and the economic technocracy generally—from the more corrosive pressures generated by Kenya’s political settlement.

AB - This chapter explores the factors that have influenced the performance of the Central Bank of Kenya, Kenya Revenue Authority, and National Treasury since the 1990s, all of which were identified as potential examples of ‘pockets of effectiveness’ in the Kenyan context. The chapter finds that Kenya’s ‘dispersed’ political settlement (which moved from a ‘narrow’ to ‘broad’ social foundation during the chapter’s period of analysis) creates an environment that is generally not conducive to concerted, longer-term investments in state capacity, as ruling elites tend to be preoccupied with shorter-term efforts to keep themselves in power and lack sufficient enforcement powers to discipline or centralize rent-seeking. Although these political pressures have been felt by the three case-study organizations, other factors have meant that the degree of autonomy that these organizations have been able to maintain has varied significantly, both between the organizations and within the same organizations over time. These factors go beyond each organization’s formal autonomy to include the nature and embeddedness of its leadership. Transnational factors have also been important, notably the extent to which these organizations have been subject to the disciplinary logics of global neoliberalism. Finally, ideational factors have helped to buttress the autonomy of these organizations, at least during particular periods, as policy coalitions composed of politicians and technocrats (drawing on, but not beholden to, donor support) have occasionally come together around shared developmental ideas to try and protect these organizations—and the economic technocracy generally—from the more corrosive pressures generated by Kenya’s political settlement.

U2 - 10.1093/oso/9780192864963.003.0004

DO - 10.1093/oso/9780192864963.003.0004

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9780192864963

SP - 91

EP - 121

BT - Pockets of Effectiveness and the Politics of State-building and Development in Africa

A2 - Hickey, Sam

PB - Oxford University Press

CY - Oxford

ER -