SERIES ON ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH IN EAST AFRICA TRUST: Rebuilding Local Knowledge Industry in East Africa

Mutahi G. Ngunyi

1. Introduction

The New Africa Initiative is about Transition in East Africa. It is about, inter alia, the `new politics' of the region. The raison d'être of SAREAT, as a component of this Initiative, is therefore derived from the position that East Africa is currently experiencing a new political dispensation. The process of this transition has generated much interest for methodological, empirical and theoretical investigations. But in spite of this flora of 'new knowledge', an East African position regarding the `new politics' of the region is yet to buoy.

SAREAT therefore argues for the provision of a forum through which East African development and rights activists, scholars, and the democratic challengers can develop and broadcast an indigenous position regarding the 'new politics' of the region.1 The idea here is to put to debate existing policy, methodological and theoretical positions regarding the region with emerging empirical findings generated by East Africans. In this way, we hope to set in motion the process of rebuilding the local knowledge industry in East Africa and to provide the East African with the opportunity to take the initiative for setting the policy and research agenda for the region. And it is in this context that SAREAT hopes to present some East African Alternatives to policy, theory, and methodology in the area of democratic politics, constitutional reforms, social policy and transformation, economic conditionality and development provisioning.

The idea of East African Alternatives derives from the argument that the policies of transition in East Africa have failed to take into account certain conditions prevailing on the 'policy sites'.2This is largely because the policy and agenda makers in the reform process are for the most part informed by 'research tourists' who visit the 'site' for few weeks and make overwhelming policy recommendations which are in turn translated into sweeping interventions. While these interventions have worked in the short-run, in the long run, their inability to capture certain social and political actors in civil society formations, have a local interpretation to the on-going reform process in the region- but an interpretation that has been muted through historical conditioning. SAREAT therefore hopes to give voice to these actors and to provide for the missing link in the formulation of the reform agenda by both the local and international actors.

2. The New East Africa

If the New Africa Initiative is about Transition and 'new politics' in the region, what are the elements of this transition and what is 'new' about them. Generally, there has been the de-militarisation of politics in Uganda, the re-invention of regime types in Kenya and Tanzania and the rise of a fairly bonafide oppositionist force in all the three. Apart from the above, four elements of transition in East Africa (among others ) are worth mentioning.

2.1 Constitutional Reforms

One enduring political development in East Africa in the 1990s has to do with the contractual relationship between the independence state and the general citizenry. The grounds on which this contract was negotiated have since become obsolete and calls for its re-negotiation dominate politics in East Africa today. In both Kenya and Tanzania, the process of constitution-making, as a process of re-negotiating the contract binding the individual to the state, is in progress. This process has already been completed in Uganda, although post-constitution accommodations are still being put in place. The achievements made so far notwithstanding, the challenges of constitution-making are bound to dominate the politics of the region for decades to come.

The enduring policy and 'research question' in this area will be whether the constitution is a viable means through which the individual can exert influence on the government, and at the same time pursue and protect his/her interest through its instruments. Undoubtedly, this raises the issue of popular participation in the whole process of constitution-making. A more fundamental research question in the region has to do with the citizen's general orientation towards a constitution. That is, his or her knowledge of and belief in a constitution as a tool for interest mediation, his or her feelings about its role in ensuring political fairplay, and his or her judgements and opinions about it as a viable social contract binding all individuals to a commonwealth of a11.3

This question of an individual's faith in the constitution as the means through which he or she can moderate his/her relationship is at the center of the impending constitutional crisis in East Africa. More so because what we have in the East African states are two contesting constitutional relationships - one traditional, while the other is republican. Constitution-making discourses in East Africa have only focused on the 'republican' process without examining the forces that undermine it - i.e. the traditional constitutional relationships. This will be a major area of interest for SAREAT - both in its research programme and its publications.

2.2 Civil Society and the Push for Limited Government

During the modernisation debates of the 1960s, discussions on African politics centred on the question of 'degree of government'. Policy advocacy pushed for `more' government and limited traditional life. Discourse has now gone full cycle advocating for an elaborate associational life and limited government.

The rise of civil society has introduced a 'third force' to the politics of the individual countries in the region. Civil society has become the site for bona fide popular agitation for social transformation and political change. In particular, the emergence of a Democracy and Governance (DG) sector of civil society populated by rights activists and people-to-people institutions has galvanised popular democratic claims from `below'.

In a sense, this has taken part of the political initiative away from the 'political class' which is a significantly new way of 'organising for politics'. Although the DG sector is still in its formative stages in all the three countries, it has great democratic potential and this is probably why policy research (in particular) has focused much of its attention on the sector lately.

The push for a limited government and the rise of a post-developmentalist civil society in East Africa has undoubtedly given rise to a new form of politics and actors in the region. This development has incidentally attracted advocacy, activist and research activities, a mix that has provided an extensive empirical flora. Indeed, both empirical and theoretical research have been conducted regarding these 'new forms of politics'. The results of these research works have unfortunately not been interrogated or put to debate with each other.

At the level of practice, the DG organisations have articulated their interests using 'global' notions of rights. This is probably because there are no local models of rights activism suitable for their work. Through its publications SAREAT hopes to inform the activities of the DG sector with local and 'appropriate' models of democratic activism. These models shall be derived from on-going research and development work in the rural frontier of civil society or what the DG organisations call `grassroots'.

2.3 Development as Rights Activism

At independence, it became a practice for the state to 'co-opt' the most vibrant aspects of culture and tradition and apply it to its politics. The ruling elite used it to popularise its development blueprints in the three countries. Indeed, African Socialism as embedded in the Sessional Paper number 10 of 1965 in Kenya, Ujamaa under the Arusha Declaration of 1967 in Tanzania, and the Common Man's Charter of 1968 under Obote I, were essentially traditional apologetics blended with `globalised' modes of production.

In this way, traditional values were merged with development strategy and then moralised. This marriage between development, instrumentalised tradition, and state politics saw the birth of indigenous movements like Harambee.4 The mushrooming of local level self-help groups in East Africa can also be seen as a result of this marriage.

The state's early 'capture' of traditional forms of life has apparently insulated this social sphere from agents of democratisation. Civil society actors operate outside of it. The only time they encounter it is when they travel to the grassroots movements to `empower' them. Yet historically, cultural and traditional resistance movements in East Africa were civil society based.

In Tanzania, the Maji Maji and Hehe rebellions early in the century were religious resistance movements based in civil society. The Mau Mau and Nandi resistance movements in Kenya were cultural rebellions expressed in political terms. Similarly, the Dini Ya Musambwa, and Legio Maria in Kenya were religious protest movements based in rural civil society. The traditional religious movements in Uganda in the first half of the 80s were also civil society formations.5

The process of liberalisation has not seen such a civil society upsurge. Not only because the traditional forms of expression have been captured by the state, but also because the rural civil society is basically politicised by the democratic challengers from above and not from within itself. To the contrary, the state in East Africa has politicised rural civil society from within, through traditional forms of authority and development provision.

Within the rural civil society itself, however, there is a group of traditional formations which has began a rebellion against state patronage. This inchoate group is more present in Kenya and Tanzania and it attempts to falsify the 1960 nationalist argument that `democracy should come in small installments behind development'. It casts development in terms of rights and is agitating for the democratisation of the development space arguing that development can not take place in an undemocratic environment. The essence of this activism is therefore to revise this notion and to underscore the fact that development provisioning is a constitutional concern, not a privilege. Especially so after the collapse of the developmentalist state6.

Certain civil institutions have began linking this thinking with the promotion of second generation rights.7 Although this development is still new, it has in a sense been captured especially by research work in the area of policy advocacy. The most interesting result from this research has to do with the role of women in development activism. Close to 80% of the organisations situated in the rural frontier of civil society are women groups. Attempts to involve the rural woman in democratisation by the DG sector has however been elusive largely because this has been by way of promotion of first generation rights.

Given the new wave of development activism and the promotion of second generation rights in the rural frontier or civil society, SAREAT hopes to broadcast this alternative method of democratisation as captured by development workers and researchers in East Africa. The role of the woman as an `anatomistic'8 individual, that is as an individual who is fairly liberated from partriachial guardianship, will particularly interest our work.

2.4 New Economic Formations

Unlike in the past where three decades of independence where any form of capital had to fraternise with the state in order to survive, economic liberalisation in the 90s has seen the development of 'new economic formations' that are fairly independent of state patronage. This is largely because liberalisation in East Africa has freed the business community from paying 'political taxes' in order to get licenses and government tenders. This in turn has given the business community some political latitude - at least in Kenya and Tanzania. Although these new formations are still inchoate, their development could contribute positively to the transition process in East Africa.The process of democratic transition has not only brought about new forms of politics but new actors as well. The roles of these actors in the process of democratic transition are constantly changing as new challenges emerge with the transition process. Because of their "newness", most of their activities advance independent, sometimes oblivious, of each other. They do not inform, or dialogue with, one another. Sometimes their activities overlap and advance at cross-purposes. This has tended to slow down the process of democratisation in East Africa.

It should however be noted that there is interaction among the new social movements and the new economic formations across the borders of the three East African countries. This interaction accounts in part for the process of co-operation from below as opposed to the traditional form of co-operation in East Africa which is driven from above by the three heads of state.

Interaction between the different actors within the three countries and across the borders is however limited. And when it happens, it is for a specific practical purpose like the running of a joint project. There is little dialogue over the challenges facing each set of actors and the experiences gained from involvement in the process of transition. As a result, each actor faces their challenges alone without the benefit of the experiences of other actors9. Indeed the sharing of these experiences and instituting mechanisms of dialogue would contribute meaningfully to democratic transition in the region.

3. The Opportunities

3.1 To capture the politics of a given political moment in East Africa - i.e.: the democratic transition. This is like the transition from colonial rule to independence in the 1960s. The opportunity here is therefore that of documenting, analysing and interpreting this political moment. As the idiom goes "a problem well defined is as good as half solved". Hence, explaining the dynamics of the transition and broadcasting the same will provide impetus to the activities of the democratic challengers.

3.2 To capture the different discourses taking place within the different `transition sites (eg: civil society, economic sphere etc.) and to have these sites dialogue with each other. This dialogue should be within and between each all the East African countries. Currently, if dialogue exists within each of the countries, little goes beyond the borders to benefit the neighbouring countries. The opportunity for SAREAT then is that of distilling the best methodologies and approaches in development provisioning, rights activism, and democratic advocacy in each of the transition sites and sharing the same with all the other sites in East Africa.

3.3 In the past, policy reform makers have basically been informed by 'research tourists' who visit the 'policy site' for a few weeks and then make generalised positions on the East African economic and political site. In the ultimate end, policy options have been based on an incomplete situation analysis. This is what accounts for the failure of certain reform instruments like 'political conditionality' - at least in Kenya and Uganda. Given this situation, the opportunity for SAREAT is that of incorporating indigenous thought into the process of 'planning for transition'. The involvement of local analysts in this process will not only supplement the position taken by 'reform consultants and researchers' from the north, but it will also put these positions to debate with what they perceive to be the 'local knowledge' regarding the positions.

3.4 Given the post-cold war realities, the 'usefulness' of East Africa to the world is dwindling. It is in this context that some of the East African states have been referred to as 'failed states' or 'junk nations'. What is observable though is that despite the fact that this position has affected levels of aid and development assistance to the region, an East African response to this thinking is yet to emerge. The opportunity for SAREAT here is therefore to develop an East African position regarding East African politics. This we hope to do by i) putting to debate existing knowledge on politics and social order in the region as perceived by the northern knowledge engineers; ii) publishing and popularising locally generated research work on democratic transition in the region; and iii) creating a forum in which the East Africans can seize the initiative of setting the socio-economic and democratic reform agenda.

4. Strategies

SAREAT strategies within the New Africa Initiative are twofold

4.1 Institutional Strategies

4.1.1 Overall Strategy:

To create an institutional setting for innovative thinking that is loose enough to allow for flexibility and for some trial and error but well rationalised to ensure that lessons learnt from this experimentation are incorporated into broad institutional objectives and programmes.

4.1.2 Specific Strategy

4.2 Programme and Product Strategies

Our programme and product strategies work towards the realisation of the institutional objectives set out in the section on opportunities. SAREAT shall have two programmes which include a) publishing and b) research, in that order of importance. Our research activities shall focus primarily on issues of governance and the democratic transition in the region.

Our publishing programme shall have three products

4.2.1 Book Series

We shall publish books based on research work done in East Africa by East Africans. These books shall be in the areas of politics of transition and democratisation in the region. Two books are expected by the end of October (dummies are available). The first one is on Constitution-Making and the Crisis of the Nation-State in Kenya edited by Mutahi Ngunyi and Wachira Maina. The book has 14 chapters which have been produced by a group of researchers working from the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) and funded by the Ford Foundation. The second book is a product of some collaborative work between the same group of researchers and the Department of Politics at the University of Leeds. It is entitled Aid and the Democratic Transition in Kenya edited by Mutahi Ngunyi and Lionel Cliffe. This volume will be jointly released by SAREAT and the Centre for Democratisation at Leeds University.

We hope to release another three books in the first quarter of 1998. Two of these are funded by the Ford Foundation at IPAR while one is from the on-going work at the University of Nairobi supported by the Africa Association of Political Scientists (AAPS).

4.2.2 Journal of East African Alternatives

This will be a quarterly journal which will publish articles sourced from East African researchers and peer reviewed internationally. The quarters shall include November 1997, February, May and August 1998. The premier issue of the Journal is expected to be out in November 1997.

4.2.3 East African Alternatives - A Monthly Review of Political Economy

in East Africa

This is a monthly magazine with contributors drawn from the academia, civil society formations, popular media and from development and political practitioners. It will differ from the existing set of magazines in East Africa in that it will do a comparative analysis of the politics of the region on a monthly basis. This analysis shall also be done by contributing editors in the areas we shall be examining.

7. Outreach Strategy

7.1. The gap the publications hope to fill

There are numerous publications in East Africa. These fall into two broad categories. The first are the publications produced by academic and non-governmental policy institutions, issue-based professional associations and international/regional organisations situated in the region. Such publications include the Urban Quarterly, Eco-News, The Jurist, and Working (or Discussion) Papers of such institutions as the Centre for Basic Research (CBR) in Uganda, Institute for Development Studies (IDS) and the African Centre for Technology and Science (ACTS) in Kenya.

Most of these publications are country-specific. The existing regional publications in this category have either wound up like the East African Journal did following the collapse of the East African Community. Apart from publications by Claripress which are regional in their reach, most of the other existing ones are 'unhealthy' publications which are released sporadically. Even then, such publications have a limited circulation.

None of the publications in this category in East Africa focus on the political economy of the region.10 Those that examine political economy issues are country specific and lack a comparative angle. This is not to say that they have not been useful in the analysis of the political situation in East Africa. Publications from CBR, ACTS and IDS have raised pertinent country-specific political economy issues that have a bearing on the other countries of the region. Because of poor marketing systems in the region, both the readership and circulation of these publications is low.11

The second category of publications are of the general public type. These are basically news-oriented and fall into different categories. There are the daily newspapers like the Nation, the East African Standard, the New Vision and the Monitor with a regional readership, and the East African, Indian Ocean Newsletter, and the Africa Analysis which do news analysis. Being news-oriented publications, they provide the most updated profile of the democratic transition in East Africa. But like all such publications, they do not provide a detailed analysis of the news and other 'non-news' developments in the region that have a bearing on the process of transition.

The Journal of East African Alternatives hopes to be a hybrid of these two types of publications. It is intended to be readable and current, well-researched, innovative. provocative and empirical. The Monthly Review of Political economy in East Africa will be a much lighter product. It is hoped to have a creative flair, to develop a reputation for leadership in quality, and to be competitive in price.

7.2 Target Readers and Audiences

Within East Africa, the SAREAT publications will be read by different categories of people.

7.2.1 Progressive Bureaucrats

They will be interested in understanding the policy environment in which they operate. We hope to have this provided for by the new social movements and the new economic formations from whom we shall draw the information.

The audiences of these bureaucrats include the politicians in government who have "no time" to read journal articles12, but who rely on the technocrats for information, policy design and implementation. Arguably, `consumers' of these policies are also audiences of the bureaucrats in the sense that the policies affecting them will hopefully be influenced by the journal articles, the books and the magazine.

7.2.2 Civil Society Actors

Given the fast-changing nature of the issues tackled by civil society formations the SAREAT publications will be useful as a tool that updates them on new advocacy techniques, practices and issues.

The audiences of these actors include the general public, specific social categories like rural women, and members of these civil society groups (like associations or professional groups). The general public and specific social categories will benefit through civic and voter education programmes which will be influenced by the journal articles. They will also benefit indirectly through advocacy, activism and publications done by civil society groups.

As for the new social movements (mainly development NG0s), their audiences are the development consumers who benefit from these movements' programmes of social provisioning and training.

7.2.3 Activist Organisations and Political Party Leadership

Both political parties and activist groups in East Africa are increasingly relying on scientifically generated information for their planning and drawing of strategies. The SAREAT publications will provide them with this kind of information in a readable and practical way. This will give them a map detailing the process of democratic transition not only in their specific countries, but in the other East African countries as well.

The audiences of political parties include the general public, and the government for those in the ruling party. Those of the activist organisations include institutions of government, and the beneficiaries of the activities of these organisations.

7.2.4 Donor Agencies and Missions

Discourse in these institutions is largely informed by non-resident East Africanists. The SAREAT publications will provide these institutions with a local perspective regarding the issues they make policies about. This perspective will be presented by those working on the 'policy site' that concern these institutions. This should make the SAREAT publications a useful policy-making tool.

The audiences of these institutions include the government ministries they negotiate with, the home governments/agencies they report to and the public sector they interact with through grant-making.

7.2.5 Corporate Actors

These are becoming increasingly interested in the political environment they operate in. They will find the SAREAT publications, especially the journal, a detailed source of analysis regarding the changing politics of the region to supplement their other readings. Because of the nature of their operations, these actors have limited audiences beyond their corporate world.

7.2.6 The Media

Given the nature of the media industry, actors involved in news analysis have little time to do meaningful research. Lack of accurate background information, or necessary facts about a situation has in many cases resulted in inaccurate analysis with far reaching effects. The media will use the SAREAT publications as a reference material on issues of political reforms in East Africa. The fact that the publications will be research-based, analytical and empirical, makes them useful sources of information.

The general public is the audience for the media. Policy makers and other strategic actors also constitute part of the media audience through columns aimed at quality reach. Positions taken in the journal should find their way to some of these columns through the media actors.

7.2.7 The Academics (Local and International)

The academics will be interested in the journal because they have to keep abreast of changing patterns and emerging issues in the process of political reforms in the region. They will also find it useful as a source of raw empirical data from different sectors of society. For the international scholars, the SAREAT publications will be useful in that it will provide them with a multi-faceted13 'ground picture' of the process of transition in East Africa. The local scholars will find this a useful forum for disseminating their research findings and engaging the internationally generated knowledge on East Africa.

The audiences of these scholars are numerous. These include students at the Universities and research institutes, colleagues in seminars and conferences, and most importantly, the clientele for whom they do consultancy work locally and internationally. Most development agencies and donor organisations depend on these actors for consultations on diverse areas of reform strategy and policy.

7.3 Sample Table of Issues to be Handled in the Journal14 and the Monthly

7.3.1 Constitution-making, Competing Ethnicities and the Question of Citizenship

7.3.2 Cultural Nationalism and Internal Conflict

7.3.3 Changing patterns of Foreign Intervention in East Africa

7.3.4 The Different Faces of Civil Society in East Africa

7.3.5 Electoral Politics and the Crisis of Democratic Transition

7.4 Marketing Strategies

For purposes of ensuring that the distribution of the SAREAT publications covers as many geographical areas as possible, we shall have numerous points of distribution world-wide. Such points include M. Heins in North America (currently distributing a number of African journals), distributors in Europe - possible explorations with mainly the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, and distribution firms in India, and the Southern part of Africa. Distribution in the other parts of Africa will be done from Nairobi.

We have already developed a mailing list of 11,000 universities and institutions of higher learning world-wide with the help of the UNESCO office in Nairobi. These form part of the target market we hope to 'capture'. An aggressive marketing strategy will be developed for each product.

8. The Vision of SAREAT

The principal vision of SAREAT is to rebuild the local knowledge industry. The key approach to this is to indigenize research. And we expect that this will lead to the resuscitation of civic society in East Africa.

Discussion and Exchange of Views

This presentation led to an extended and animated discussion. A whole series of issues were raised in connection with publication and with materials to be published. For instance, the first issue that was raised was the perennial problem of weighing between quality of research and quantity of publications. A balance must be stricken between the two so as to ensure the publication of quality material. It was suggested that care must be taken to maintain balance between the empirical and the conceptual (or even the theoretical) in the publications. Concern was expressed that empirical material may dominate to the detriment of conceptual and theoretical writings. The kind of language that should be used as a medium for the publications in view of the objective of reaching a wider mass (both rural and urban) was the other problem aired in the course of the exchange of views. How this audience can be reached was the other related problem which was addressed to the presenters. One person from the floor wondered what in the first place is meant by indigenizing policy debates and where the dividing line could fall between international and local knowledge.

The other set of issues aired and discussed concerned SAREAT itself. How is it organized? Does it have the required size to fulfill the task that it has set for itself? What is its legal status? These and other similar issues were raised and discussed at length. Numerous suggestions were forwarded to the presenters.

1 Why is this important anyway? We shall answer this question in a while.

2 See for instance Institute of Policy Analysis and Researach (IPAR)'s comments on The Wolrld Bank Country Framework for Kenya ( Place of publication:? 1996)

3 See Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils, Toward a General Theory of Action (Cambridge: 1951). The two refer to this as the cognitive, affective and evaluative orientaitons of the individual.

4 This is a fund-raising strategy for internal self-reliance. Although dominant in Kenya, it is also present in Uganda and Tanzania.

5 For instance, the Alice Lakwena cult.

6 The developmentalist state derived its raison d'être from providing development. The crisis of development in the 1980s has seen development provisioning in East Africa more controlled by the NGOs and less by the state.

7 Oxfam for instance has numerous position papers on this issue.

8 Ula Uviolera, Negotiating a New Gender Contract, (IDS, Helsinki:1995).

9 Some form of dialogue is currently developing in Kenya between policy research organisations, the bureaucracy, social movements and political parties. Several public forums involving these actors have been held to examine such questions as Citizenship and Ethnicity, the Asian Question in East Africa, and the Constitution-Making process in Kenya.

10 This is with the exception of Claripress publications. These are however not irregular in their production.

11 We hope to lay emphasis on the marketing of the journal in order to ensure that it reaches our target audience.

12 It must be noted here that the journal will be in a language that is friendly to the government politician. His/ her failure to read it should be purely out of lack of time or interest.

13 Multi-faceted because it is presented by actors from different sectors of society.

14 These issues will be refined and contributors identified after a visit to the three countries of the region.

15 Interesting works on this issue have been done by Prof. Steve Ndegwa of the College of William and Mary, and Prof. Mamdani in various publications.

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