Continuity and Counter-Insurgency: The Role of Land Reform in Decolonizing Kenya, 1962–70

Abstract

This article represents part of a larger study of decolonization in Kenya.' The approach to decolonization in that study is not that of tracing the upward development of an indigenous African political movement, but rather of tracing the downward manipulation of that movement into a colonial-established system. Decolonization, from this perspective, is not merely the transfer of formal political authority to indigenous rulers. It also represents the adaptive, cooptive, pre-emptive process of integrating a potentially disruptive nationalist party into the structures and requisites of the colonial political economy. Decolonization is adaptive in that colonial political and economic elites must seek new means of influence in the altered political authority structure. It is cooptive in that it aims to socialize the new nationalist elite into colonial behavior patterns. Finally, decolonization is pre-emptive in that it is initiated largely to prevent the formation and mobilization of the mass nationalist base.