“Abandoning diplomacy for confrontation.....is a dive over a cliff,” - Antonio Guterres, UN Chief

President Nelson Mandela famously said “one of the mistakes which some political analysts make is to think their enemies should be our enemies”. This is how diplomacy worked for the most part of the Cold War era. You could fly between Washington and Moscow cutting deals under the pretense of ‘ non-alignment’ which went well for the emerging states as the two super powers battled for influence. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America was still interested in building soft power but the economic rise of China has tested this to the point of near abandonment by the Trump administration which is now turning inwards. It is no longer about being cool. Some have called it ‘ transactional ’ diplomacy but international politics has always been about national interests. Unlike the Soviet Union, China’s economic growth carries a threat that the West never had to worry about post Second World War. Worse still, the Chinese have not shied from flexing their muscles. At the start of Trump’...

In the 2020 United States presidential elections, Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. His supporters later stormed Washington in a desperate attempt to stop the certification of the results by Congress. Trump left power as a political outcast even within his own Republican party. The elite believed that he will never mount a comeback, overzealous prosecutors both at state and federal level went after him, he was kicked off social media and negative coverage piled up on mainstream media. The Democrats wanted Trump on the presidential ballot because they were convinced he could not win against anyone they presented. Some top Trump rivals within the Republican party amplified that message including Nikki Haley and even the non- committal former vice president in the first “MAGA” administration, Mike Pence. After the Gen-Z protests that brought down the 2024 Finance Bill, the elite in Nairobi have come to a similar conclusion that anyone can beat President William Ruto in the next election. ...

Traditionally, diplomacy has been a preserve of the state in which representatives of a given country manage international relations abroad. However, the growing influence of non-state actors in the international political space continues to galvanize a rethink among scholars of what constitutes diplomacy. When President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the Governors of California, New York, and Washington issued a joint statement affirming that they were still in the fight against climate change. Governor Jerry Brown of California went ahead to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing to discuss matters climate change (Sloss, 2017). Sub-national actors are under the authority of the national government and despite their good intentions, they are limited by constitutional provisions that prevent them from entering into treaties with foreign powers in addition to other challenges like finances and expertise required f...

In 2012, Republicans lost their second election to former President Barack Obama the same year that two United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya came under attack by an Islamic militant group resulting into the death of among others the American Ambassador. Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State and a likely heir to Obama’s throne, Republicans went for her head. As conspiracy theorists on the far right branded Hillary a witch who belonged to a satanic cult and a child-sex ring, the Republican dominated Congress went on with endless investigations into her over the Benghazi attack and eventually her handling of confidential information. Amidst all this, the lapse of judgement by Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch in meeting President Bill Clinton coupled by former FBI Director James Comey’s famous letter to Congress badly damaged Hillary’s presidential ambitions. On the Republican side, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush was a leading contender for the nomination u...

Evangelicalism can be defined as protestant Christianity that puts an emphasis on personal salvation through Jesus Christ with the Bible as the final authority on all matters of faith and practice (Smidt, 1988).   Over the years, Protestantism has been credited with capitalist economic growth and open democratic societies as witnessed in the early stages of British and United States industrialization while on the other hand, Catholicism has been looked at through the prism of semi feudal economics and authoritarianism (Smilde,2003). However, in Latin America, evangelical leaders were accused of failure to speak out against authoritarian regimes in places like Nicaragua based on the belief that reforms are a product of personal salvation of individuals in authority and not an outcome of social revolution (Smith and Haas, 1997). To them, as men and women seek guidance of the Bible, soldiers will respect human rights, politicians will tell the truth and entrepreneurs will make money...

  In 2019, Kenyan rapper King Kaka caused an internet storm with his hit “ Wajinga nyinyi” in which he castigated the corrupt as well as the stupidity of voters who according to him and rightly so, elect the same culprits. One of the key people mentioned was the current Kirinyanga Governor Anne Waiguru who despite her stay in government having been clouded by serious corruption allegations turned out victorious in the gubernatorial election. She threatened to sue the rapper for defamation but that never materialized although some like Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi had already offered to represent King Kaka pro bono. Today, Waiguru is on the right side of Abdullahi’s politics so just like many others, nobody seems to care about her past. Dr. David Ndii recently claimed that Dr. William Ruto was not running on an anti-corruption platform and those who think otherwise should look elsewhere. The elephant in the room would be how Ruto will deliver his economic agenda in a corrup...