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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how residents’ associations in Nairobi and Mombasa engage in collective action to bargain over land rates. It shows how procedural participation expands inclusion without influence, producing uneven bargaining outcomes shaped by organisational capacity and administrative opacity.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how collective action shapes tax bargaining around land rates in Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya. While public participation in fiscal and planning decisions is constitutionally mandated, empirical evidence shows that participation largely operates as a procedural exercise rather than a mechanism for substantive influence. Residents are routinely invited to participate, yet their inputs rarely translate into enforceable decisions or policy change.

Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with residents’ associations, civic networks, the political class and state officers, the paper shows that bargaining outcomes over land rates is shaped less by participation itself than by organisational capacity, access to professional knowledge, and the ability to engage administrative systems. Well-resourced and formally organised residents’ associations are better positioned to translate grievances into administratively legible claims, sustain engagement over time, and deploy alternative strategies such as litigation and alliance-building when participation fails. In contrast, residents lacking stable organisational structures remain trapped in cycles of participation without impact.

The paper further demonstrates how administrative opacity, fragmented land governance, and uneven service delivery shape residents’ perceptions of legitimacy and compliance. Land rates bargaining unfolds through a dynamic mix of contentious and non-contentious strategies, producing uneven and conditional forms of state responsiveness. Rather than resolving conflict, bargaining stabilises contention while reproducing inequalities in voice and influence.

By foregrounding the meso-level role of residents’ associations, the paper contributes to debates on participation, collective action, and fiscal governance in urban Africa, showing how procedural inclusion can coexist with constrained agency and adaptive forms of citizen mobilisation.