Paper short abstract:

Using debates over security, this paper explores how contests over the local state between county and national elites highlight the contradictions of political devolution at a time of expanding national interests in peripheral areas.

Paper long abstract:

Constitutional devolution, introduced in 2013, created 47 new political and administrative sub-national governments. As the most significant institutional change in Kenya's history, it raises important questions about the role of strengthened sub-national elites in the evolution of the local state.

While the security docket has not been devolved, priorities around internal stability have long sat at the heart of Kenyan statecraft. Therefore, in exploring the evolution of the local state and the role of new elites, it is crucial to ask how - without control over the coercive apparatus - they seek to build legitimacy as a new tier of the state.

The first term of devolution (2013-17) is arguably a time of political rupture and when relationships between the two tiers of government matter. Using the case study of Mombasa, this paper will explore how ongoing power struggles between county commissioners (national government appointees) and county governors (executive heads of the new counties) are shaping the emerging contest over the local state in Kenya.

Exploring the interplay between the two tiers of government shifts away from debates that tend to analyse the role and efficacy of devolved institutions in isolation. The interplay between 'local' and 'national' is especially important in Kenya given that political devolution has come into being at a time of expanding national security and economic priorities in the country's peripheries, where hopes for devolution were highest.