SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This dissertation examines Kenya’s decentralisation process and the agricultural sector over the period 1963-2018. The agricultural sector’s primacy to macroeconomic outcomes and political stability is the focus of analysis, due its key role in maintaining the holding power of ruling elites. Decentralisation theory is supplemented by political settlement theory to assist in providing insights into understanding how the expected theoretical benefits of decentralisation are formally and/or informally modified by groups as a reflection of actual power in society. The research determined that the early 2000s presented an opportunity for critical institutional change. The 2003-2013 decade altered the framework of power at national and within the new subnational units. A new constitutional dispensation in 2010, created a thoroughgoing decentralisation process, which created new rents, rent-seeking outcomes, and patronage. The effect of decentralisation in agricultural service delivery was analysed to understand the extent decentralisation would affect theoretical expected outcomes.