Karuti Kanyinga

Biographic Data

ID138538
NAMEKaruti Kanyinga
GIVEN NAMESKaruti
FAMILY NAMEKanyinga
SIGNATUREKANYINGA K
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Nairobi
ORCID0000-0002-6445-9801
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS75
TOTAL CITATIONS181
AUTHOR COUNT24
EDITOR COUNT51
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1998
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX8

  • An Integral Part of Our Lives”

    Open AccessFatima Dahir Mohamed, F Ali Mohamed et al.ARTICLEAfrica Spectrum2026

    This article examines Somali WhatsApp groups as socio-technical gathering spaces used for emergency assistance during crises. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork in Nairobi and Mogadishu, and a case study of a WhatsApp group mobilising drought relief in 2022, we explore how platform usage is shaped by social norms, care practices and kinship structures to enable mobilisation, coordination, and distribution of aid. Inspired by scholarship on communic…

  • Care and Politics in Action

    Open AccessSahra Ahmed Koshin, Nauja Kleist et al.ARTICLEAfrica Spectrum2026References: 26

    This paper examines the humanitarian engagement of Somali diaspora businesswomen in Zambia and it interacts with political and commercial interests. Focusing on a network of businesswomen in Lusaka and their chairwoman, Guddomiso Shamso Sheikh Ali, we investigate the gendered mobilisation, delivery, and communication of emergency relief in response to the 2020 Qardho flash floods in Puntland, Somalia. The ethnographic case study employs qualitati…

  • From Religion to Kinship

    Open AccessAbdirahman Edle, Peter Albrecht et al.ARTICLEAfrica Spectrum2026References: 22

    This article examines Somali diaspora humanitarianism by comparing mosque and kinship-based associations in Eastleigh, Nairobi. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Eastleigh and Mogadishu – including fifty-seven interviews, four focus group discussions, and participant observation – it explores how aid is shaped by moral obligations, political loyalties, and communal expectations. Using Mauss's gift theory, the article argues that acts of giving…

  • Beyond war and politics

    Open AccessAbdirahman Edle, Peter Albrecht et al.ARTICLEJournal of Eastern African Studies2025References: 41

  • Protecting the win, and securing the base

    Denis Galava, Karuti KanyingaARTICLEJournal of Eastern African Studies2024Cited by: 2References: 26

    In much of Africa, opposition presidential candidates face the benefits of incumbency and often accuse the government of rigging. But in Kenya’s 2022 presidential election, it was the government-favoured candidate, Raila Odinga, who lost and accused the electoral body of rigging. Then-incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta had mobilised allies and senior government officials to support Odinga against his own deputy president, William Ruto, who won th…

  • Has Kenya democratized? Institutional strengthening and contingency in the 2022 general elections

    Open AccessNic Cheeseman, Karuti Kanyinga et al.ARTICLEJournal of Eastern African Studies2024Cited by: 2References: 25

    Kenya’s 2022 general elections saw – for only the second time in the country’s history – a transfer of power from a retiring president to a candidate that they had not backed. Moreover, despite accusations of electoral malpractice, the Supreme Court upheld the results, relatively few petitions were submitted for lower-level races, and political unrest around the election itself was relatively minor. This has led some commentators to speculate tha…

  • No Option but to Settle! The Community Land Act, Devolution and Pastoralism in Samburu County, Kenya

    Open AccessRukyya Hassan, Karuti Kanyinga et al.ARTICLENomadic Peoples2023Cited by: 2

    This article examines the process of securing land rights for pastoralists in Kenya, applying the concept of sedentism to understand the impact of two recent changes in Kenyan land governance. In 2010, the Government of Kenya passed a new constitution, which devolved government power to the local level. A declared aim was to give communities greater influence over governance of their lands. Then, in 2016, the Government passed the Community Land …

  • Will community rights secure pastoralists' access to land? The Community Land Act in Kenya and its implications for Samburu pastoralists

    Rukyya Hassan, Iben Nathan et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Peasant Studies2023Cited by: 11References: 52

    Pastoralists depend on access to communal rangelands but ongoing privatisation of land threatens their access. Further, globally, proponents of pastoralism call for state-sanctioned communal land rights to secure pastoralists access. In Kenya, the government has enacted the Community Land Act to secure communal land rights. This article examines how the implementation of this law affects pastoralists access to communal rangelands in Samburu count…

  • Introduction

    Open AccessKaruti Kanyinga, Chachage Seithy L ChachageARTICLEAfrica Development2022References: 4

  • Thinking about Thandika, A Friend, Mentor, and Africa’s Foremost Social Scientist

    Open AccessKaruti Kanyinga, Karuti Kanyinga Karuti KanyingaARTICLECODESRIA Bulletin2021

  • Election Technology, Disputes, and Political Violence in Kenya

    Open AccessCollins Odote, Karuti KanyingaARTICLEJournal of Asian and African…2021Cited by: 7References: 20

    In Africa, many countries have adopted technology in the conduct of elections so as to improve efficiency and deter malpractice. However, electoral disputes and violence continue to recur even where elections involve use of technology. This article builds on a case study of Kenya to show the limitations of technology use in elections. We argue that use of election technology does not guarantee the credibility of elections; technology has become a…

  • Sexual-minority rights and activism

    Sini Hassinen, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    This chapter offers an overview of the legal, political, and social position of sexual minorities in Kenya. Current developments are illustrated through the lens of public narratives. The chapter provides a comparison between master and counter-narratives. Master narratives rely on cultural scripts of homosexuality being illegal, immoral, and against African values, and are reproduced through religious arguments and performative political spectac…

  • Chiefs, elders, and traditional authority

    Michelle Osborn, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    For over a century, Kenya’s chiefs have served as central figures in the formation and implementation of state bureaucracy. Inextricably linked with the colonial and post-colonial state, Kenya’s chiefs are not representative of traditional forms of authority in the way that elders may be said to be, but are rather an embodiment of the state’s bureaucratic apparatus. As a key component of Kenyan bureaucracy through their position in provincial adm…

  • The science, suspicion, and sustainability of opinion polls

    Thomas P Wolf, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    The past 30 years have seen political surveys, particularly those related to elections, evolve from an occasional novelty to a staple feature of the Kenyan political scene. This chapter considers several issues with regard to these surveys. These include: (1) the practical challenges in conducting them as well as recent technological advances; (2) the reasons why a high level of suspicion is often attached to election polls in particular, and the…

  • The informal economy and its relationship with the state

    Jane N O Khayesi, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    This chapter examines the function of the informal economy in Kenya and the shifting government responses to it through a review of key policies and documents from 1971 to 2017. As in many African states, the Kenyan informal economy is a critical source of employment and economic activity, providing 80 percent of new jobs in an average year. The key finding of this chapter is that the Kenyan government has undertaken a number of initiatives to su…

  • The political role of Islam

    Ngala Chome, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    This chapter discusses Muslim politics in the context of wider debates about political inclusion and exclusion in Kenya. It submits that a common narrative of exclusion and injustice amongst Kenya’s minority Muslim population exists, but that an imagined political community of Muslims has failed to emerge. In part, this is due to ethnic, racial, class, and doctrinal differences. It is also due to different understandings of what needs to be done …

  • The 2013 elections and the peace narrative (2013–2015)

    Collins Odote, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    While disputes have always accompanied Kenya’s electoral processes, the 2007 general elections shook the country’s foundations. The ensuing debate pitted those who wanted to focus on truth and justice against those who prioritized peace, with two competing narratives dominating discussions around the subsequent elections in 2013. First, that Kenya needed to do everything possible to avoid a repeat of the 2007/8 post-election violence; and second,…

  • The weaknesses of political parties

    Adams Oloo, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    The chapter addresses the weaknesses of political parties in Kenya, which include structural constraints; institutional fragilities; legal hurdles; the nature of society; and, in the case of opposition parties, insubordination to the state machinery. Despite the foregoing challenges, the chapter demonstrates how the country has held regular and periodic elections since Independence under various party systems—something that stands as a testimony …

  • The lessons and legacies of the “Kenya debate”

    John W Harbeson, Frank Holmquist et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    The Kenya Debate concerned whether authentic capitalist development would take place on the periphery of the global economy. Capitalism has deepened, but prior internal developments, extreme inequality by social class, a profoundly changing international order at the time of the debate, and the subsequent predatory political behavior of the political class have set Kenya’s economy on a very problematic path. This chapter discusses core features o…

  • Civil conflict, power-sharing, truth and reconciliation (2005–2013)

    James D Long, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    This chapter reviews the events emanating from Mwai Kibaki’s first presidential term and the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government’s dissolution after failed constitutional revision in 2005. This period includes the rise of a new political opposition, which, organized around Raila Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), contested against Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) in the 2007 election. The dynamics and aftermath of tha…

  • Colonial rule and the rise of African politics (1930–1963)

    Derek R Peterson, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    This chapter explores how colonial Kenya’s African politicians cultivated intimacy—a feeling of common purpose and shared destiny—among disparate and divided people. Early African activists exerted a custodial authority over their people’s language, culture, and morality. They sought to amend decorum and conduct even as they represented their people’s interests in the public sphere. The second part of the chapter describes how, in the context of …

  • RiftValley

    Alex Dyzenhaus, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    The Rift Valley is Kenya’s largest and most populous province, whose diverse peoples and rich resources have led it to be central to Kenya’s politics and development. The province has also been the site of intense political competition and even electoral violence. This chapter analyses continuity and change in the Rift after the devolution of authority to county governments. First, it looks at how devolution has created the foundation for limited…

  • Foreign policy and regional relations

    L Muthoni Wanyeki, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    In recent years, and particularly since the 2013 general election and the ascent to power of the Jubilee Alliance, Kenya has sought to enhance its influence and standing beyond the regional economic communities of the East African Community (EAC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This chapter explores Kenya’s foreign policy and changing relationship with the EAC and IGAD, the ways in which it has sought to expand its regi…

  • Daniel arap Moi and one-party rule (1978–1991)

    David Throup, David W Throup et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    This chapter examines Daniel arap Moi’s succession to the presidency in 1978 and his efforts to consolidate power. After initially seeking to allay fears of change, Moi moved to construct a new coalition following the 1979 elections by removing Kikuyu from key positions and appointing members of his own Kalenjin community, along with other Rift Valley communities, the Luhya of Western Province, and Coastal groups. Following the failed coup of Aug…

  • The limits of multi-partyism (1992–2005)

    Raymond Muhula, Nic Cheeseman et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics2020

    This chapter examines the events that shaped Kenya’s democratization, from the reintroduction of multi-partyism in 1992 to the popular rejection of a new Constitution in 2005. The chapter shows how, in the face of strong benefits of incumbency and a government set on staying in power, a divided opposition lost to President Moi and the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) in both the 1992 and 1997 elections. In 2002, the opposition finally u…