Governing Kenya
‘This volume is a major contribution to comparative policy analysis by focusing on the policy processes in Kenya, a country undergoing modernization of its economic and political institutions. Written by experts with a keen eye for the commonalities and differences the country shares with other nations, it covers a range of topics like the role of experts and politicians in policymaking, the nature of public accountability, the impact of social media on policy actors, and the challenges of teaching policy studies in the country. As a first comprehensive study of an African nation, Governing Kenya will remain a key text for years to come’.
—Michael Howlett, Burnaby Mountain Chair of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Canada
‘A superb example of development scholarship which sets aside ‘best practice’ nostrums and focuses on governance challenges specific to time and place while holding on to a comparative perspective. Useful to scholars and practitioners not only in Kenya but across developing areas. I strongly recommend it!’
—Brian Levy teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, USA, and the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
‘This book is an exploration of important deliberations - of interest for those of us interested in deepening the understanding of public policy theories and their application within a specific African setting’.
—Wilson Muna, Lecturer of Public Policy, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
‘This collection of think pieces on public policy in Kenya gives the reader theoretical and practical hooks critical to the analysis of the implementation of the sovereign policy document in Kenya, the 2010 Constitution’.
—Willy Mutunga, Chief Justice & President of the Supreme Court, Republic of Kenya, 2011-2016
‘Governing Kenya provides acomprehensive analysis of public policymaking in Kenya. The book integrates public policy theory with extensive empirical examples to provide a valuable portrait of the political and economic influences on policy choices in this important African country. The editors have brought together a group of significant scholars to produce an invaluable contribution to the literature on public policy in Africa’.
—B. Guy Peters, Maurice Folk Professor of American Government, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Goran Hyden is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Florida, United States. After receiving his Ph.D. from Lund University, Sweden, he began his political science and public administration career in the now defunct University of East Africa: Makerere (1965-66), Nairobi (1968-71) and Dar es Salaam (1971-77). Before joining the University of Florida in 1986, he served as Social Science Advisor and Representative in the Nairobi-based Ford Foundation’s Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, 1978-85.He co-edited his first book (with Robert H. Jackson and John J. Okumu) in 1970 titled Development Administration: The Kenyan Experience. He has authored over twenty books of his own, e.g. Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania (1980), No Shortcuts to Progress (1983) and African Politics in Comparative Perspective (2006). He served as President of the U.S. African Studies Association 1995 and received its Distinguished Africanist Award in 2015. He has also been Chairman of the Board of the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden and the African Centre for Technology Studies, Nairobi.
