Kenyans' distrust of government is fast approaching American levels

Emmy Rono, a Harvard graduate and an upcoming scholar, coined the theme of this week’s piece during a recent conversation on campus. The topic of discussion was the often-ignored relationship between terrorism and corruption.

Corruption weakens the structures of the state and exposes its vulnerability. Often, the corrupt officials are not aware of the unimaginable consequences of their immoral conduct.

They fail to see the relationship between taking bribes or misappropriating public goods, land or money, and the growth of terrorism. Corruption and terrorism are bedfellows, and terrorism thrives where injustice flourishes.

Francis Fukuyama is one of the leading policy thinkers of the 21st century. A week ago we had an interesting conversation. There were some business and law students in the room, and he was putting his ideas together for a public lecture organised at the business school.

In Fukuyama’s opinion, “we have a problem, but we can’t see it clearly because our focus too often discounts history.”

CORRUPT U.S. GOVERNMENT

Fukuyama explained that the government of the United States of America used to be deeply and openly corrupt. The levels of patronage and public indolence, the bribes paid at every election and the cronyism of the ruling class were but a few of the most common ills of a rotten society. Things started to change in 1883 with the passage of the Pendleton Act.

The change of attitude began in 1881 with an “external shock”, when Charles J. Guiteau assassinated President James A. Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Guiteau believed he should have been appointed a diplomat in Vienna or Paris for his vital support in Garfield’s election victory.

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The shock and grief was such that Congress finally decided to take action and put in place what they had been procrastinating for too long: the enactment of the 1883 Pendleton Act, which provided that federal government jobs be awarded on the basis of merit and that government employees be selected through competitive exams.

The Pendleton Act triggered the creation of a modern, centralised, merit-based bureaucracy capable of exercising jurisdiction over the whole territory. These changes took long, but they eventually bore fruits.

DISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT

Perhaps it is a cycle, but Fukuyama says that many political institutions in the United States are decaying again. They are becoming dysfunctional due to a sort of intellectual rigidity and the growing power of entrenched political actors that prevent reform and rebalancing.

America is now facing three key structural characteristics that have become problematic, and which are the cause of decay.

The first is that the judiciary and the legislature play outsized roles in American government at the expense of executive branch bureaucracies.

Americans’ traditional distrust of government leads to judicial solutions for administrative problems.  Over time this has become a very expensive and inefficient way to manage administrative requirements.

The second is the disproportionate accumulation of interest groups and lobbying influences. This has distorted democratic processes and eroded the ability of the government to operate effectively.

The third is that excessive ideological polarisation in a federal governance structure has turned the system of checks and balances into a porous process—too democratic for its own good – giving too many actors the means to stifle adjustments in public policy.

Due to the judicialisation of government and the outsized role of interest groups, America is unlikely to face this systemic crisis any time soon.

UHURU'S BOLD MOVE

It is interesting to notice that Fukuyama’s reasons for decay in America are quite similar to the salient points of our new governance structure. The virtues we imported into our system have turned to be vices elsewhere: a powerful legislature, increased lobby groups and a weaker central government.

These three characteristics were included into the Kenyan constitutional architecture to make the system more democratic, but at the same time they unintentionally undermined our trust in government.

Fukuyama’s premise is based on the fact that distrust of executive agencies leads to excessive litigation and demands for more legal checks on administration, which further reduces the quality and effectiveness of government by reducing bureaucratic autonomy.

It may seem paradoxical, but reduced bureaucratic autonomy is what in turn leads to rigid, rule-bound, un-innovative and incoherent government. These are precisely the greatest challenges we are facing under the new constitution.

They make our emerging democratic system new while at the same time decaying, and this decay is accelerated by corruption in the form of patronage and impunity.

President Uhuru made a bold move last March when he suspended some high-ranking officers and ordered investigations to be carried out within 60 days.

The country is holding its breath, carefully observing the next move by the Director of Public Prosecution and the Judiciary. The impact these institutions will make on these coming days will determine the outcome of the war on terror.

POLICE AND ARMY REACTIVE

Yesterday, at a breakfast conversation, Eva Wangui Kimani, a young graduate assistant, said that antiterrorism is a game of intelligence. Terrorism is not handled through ordinary means such as roadblocks, speed-guns, pocket searching or scanners. It is a "dangerous game" in which infiltration of enemy command lines and trust go hand in hand.

As time passed the conversation become more thought-provoking, and it became clear to all that the war on terror begins by fighting impunity. The government needs to revive the rapid results initiative and identify the end of impunity as one of its key indicators.

This end of impunity begins with the expiry of the presidential deadline and the careful examination and eventual indictment of the accused.

The role of the EACC, the DPP and the Judiciary is proactive, while the role of the police and the army is reactive. This is why the end of terrorism ultimately lies with the EACC, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Judiciary, rather than with the police or the army, which are there to apply corrective measures when required.

For as long as impunity remains untouched, terrorism, its bedfellow, will not only subsist, but also gather momentum.

Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected], Twitter: @lgfranceschi