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

Former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her biography describes Uhuru Kenyatta as capitalist and western schooled because of their family businesses and having studied in America respectively. Anderson (2003) asserts that Uhuru belongs to the powerful lineage of the Kenyatta family and was thrown into national politics by President Daniel Arap Moi untested and inexperienced. He was Moi’s chosen successor but lost to Mwai Kibaki in the 2002 general elections. He later joined Kibaki’s administration as Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government. After being indicted by the International Criminal Court over the 2007-8 post-election violence together with William Ruto, the two used radio stations like Kameme FM and Kass FM to portray themselves as victims (International Crisis Group [ICG], 2012). According to Malik (2016), the ICC indictments enabled them to consolidate Kikuyu and Kalenjin support leading to their ascension to power in 2013 something that shows...

The aim of this paper is to give a broad analysis of the circumstances that surrounded the rise of Daniel Toroitich arap Moi to become the longest serving president in the history of Kenya, starting in the year 1978 after the death of the first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta all the way to 2002 when he handed over power. According to Kissinger (1966), foreign policy begins where domestic policy ends and that domestic structures must respond to the requirements of the environment. He then submits that the first goal of a statesman is survival. A key focus will be how the self-proclaimed ‘professor’ of politics went about his foreign policy and how the conditions at home shaped his decision making when dealing with other states. This will be presented in three parts that is his experience as he rose to power, the domestic scene and finally how he responded to the external environment.   The Rise of the ‘professor’ of Politics Daniel Arap Moi was the Chairman of Kenya African Democr...

Colonization can be defined as a way of establishing control over a given area or domain to your own benefit. In my last article, soft power was referred to as the ability to shape the preferences of others or essentially when one country influences the desired outcomes of other states through persuasion, education, public opinion, and appeal of cultural ideals and customs. For starters, America’s soft power and generally western European values have shaped for years the push for democracy, human rights, freedom of speech among other things across the globe with great effect whether you are talking about the lead to the collapse of the Berlin wall marking the end of the Cold war or democratic struggles in Africa, Asia and South America. However, the rise of China as a global power with an economy only second to the United States has raised concerns as to whether they can be tamed by such values. In his book on soft power, Joseph Nye clearly states how Western music, movies and radi...

“Soft power” is a term associated with political scientist Joseph Nye. He defines soft power as “the ability to shape the preferences of others,” or essentially when one country influences the desired outcomes of other states through persuasion, education, public opinion, and appeal of cultural ideals and customs. Nye compares this with “hard power,” which states harness when they use military force or economic pressure to force certain outcomes on the world stage (Wurtz, 2010). Let me admit that having gone through this book, I am inspired to lean more towards neo-liberal approach to international relations. This has been an eye-opener especially for some of us who highly rate America’s hard power. In the early chapters I had the feeling that the author was against military and economic strength but that seems not to be the case. What I have learnt is that military and economic power are essential, but they have their limits. The recent events where protests were held in Ghana aga...

We all remember that period when corvid 19 was ravaging Italy and Spain, recording high death rates and overwhelming numbers of infections. During that time, I listened to a reporter on Aljazeera outlining the progress that was being made on developing a vaccine and eventually a cure. His parting shot was “ our hope is in science ”. I have no problem with science because I believe all knowledge is a blessing from God and that statement reflected the hopelessness of the situation but for those of us who believe in a superior hope, that was a hard one to swallow. I also listened to some prominent preachers push the idea that this virus could actually be from God to remind us to rethink our ways. The fact that there was no certainty to that revelation is excusable but the thought of God unleashing death with a virus whatever the justification is really frightening. That is not the kind of God I have come to know but people believe what they want to believe yet one would ask, “Are we that ...

A methodological review of the paper titled ‘Are Women Peaceful? Reflections on the Role of Women in Peace-Building.’ by Hilary Charlesworth.  According to Charlesworth, the paper examines the way that women’s relationship to peace is constructed in international institutions and international law. It identifies a set of claims about women and peace that are typically made and considers women’s experience in the conflicts in Bougainville, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. In reviewing this paper methodologically, I will endeavor to look at answering three questions which as stated by Punch(2009) include the ontological question of what reality is like, the epistemological question of what relationship is between that researcher and that reality, and finally the methodological question of what methods can be used or were used in studying the reality. Ontological questions are prior because they deal with the very nature of ‘being’; literally, an ontology is a theory of ‘being’...

I am not a fun of communism or socialism whichever way you may look at it despite the fact that I do accept capitalism has its weaknesses. Nevertheless, there is no system I know of that has lifted many out of poverty like capitalism. Enough of myself, I am here to write about the Odingas! Capitalism is simply an economic and political system whereby control of trade and industry is under profit-making private ownership rather than the state. When it comes to communism, ownership is with the community hence everyone contributes or receives based on their abilities or needs whereas socialism entails a political system that ensures all citizens have an equal allocation of state resources and social ownership of the means of production. The fall out between Jaramogi Oginga Odinga the then Vice president and his boss President Jomo Kenyatta not long after Kenya’s independence threw the young state into an ideological battle of ‘ East and West’ despite attempts to portray a non-aligned i...