Kenya

Reviews / Votes

This excellent collection sets out the context required to understand the importance of implementing Kenya's new constitution, and highlights the various barriers and obstacles to achieving the same. As such, the book provides a timely contribution to academic debates, as well as a call to action for all those interested in protecting Kenya's recent constitutional gains and promoting constitutionalism. * Gabrielle Lynch, associate professor of comparative politics, University of Warwick * With helpful chapters on elite politics, the security situation, and the process of constitution making, this is essential reading for anyone who seeks a complete understanding of the "Kenya crisis" and what followed. It is not possible to understand the politics of contemporary Kenya without this back story. * Nic Cheeseman, director of the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford * Murunga, Okello and Sjoegren demonstrate that as protracted, engaged and contradictory as the effort to achieve a new constitution was, its enactment marks only the next stage of a struggle that is far from over. The Struggle for a New Constitutional Order is not simply a chronicle of a bitter history; it is more tellingly a forecast of considerably more political drama to come. * Professor Joe Oloka-Onyango, Makerere University * Murunga, Okello and Sjoegren - all with intimate knowledge of Kenya's struggle for democracy - have edited an epic work of the intellect. In these pages, they and the authors bring to life the tortured but vital peaks and valleys of the yearning of the Kenyan people to live free of autocracy and illiberalism. Some of the authors, like Yash Ghai, are synonymous with the making of Kenya's constitution. * Professor Makau Mutua, State University of New York Buffalo *