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This book aims to contribute to the subject of elections and conflicts and how they influence each other. The Tana delta in Kenya frequently sees conflicts over natural resources which occasionally claim lives or even end in severe violence. On 4th March 2013 Kenya held transitional elections which introduced a devolved government. During the election campaigning periode almost 200 people died in ethnic clashes. "Behind the Worrior's Spear" identifies factors which contributed to the clashes and analyses the root cause of natural resource conflicts in the Tana delta. It analyses how the clashes in the area were influenced by the elections as well as how institutional failure and legal pluralism contributed to the tensions. Further, it looks into the consequences of the clashes on the elections, especially the effects on voting behaviour. A key finding is that the conflict enhanced ethnic cohesion and streghthened the importance of ethnic belonging for the elections which, in fact, was not as important before the clashes, as often suggested by scholars of the neopatrimonial school of thought.
About the author
After having studied Sociology and Political Science, Katja Kirchner chose to do a Research Masters in African Studies. Her main fields of interest are election politics, rural sociology, conflict resolution and peace building. In 2014 she started working with the Civil Peace Service in Kenya.
