Paper short abstract:

This paper builds on concepts of ‘illiberal state-building’ and ‘developmental authoritarianism’ in Kenya and Ethiopia, where extractive regimes, high-modernist visions and transformative agendas (LAPSSET and the Addis Ababa-Adama development corridor) face limits and resistance in implementation.

Paper long abstract:

In Kenya and Ethiopia, the emergence of extractive regimes, high-modernist visions and state transformative agendas - notably LAPSSET (Lamu Port and South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor) project led by Kenya and the Addis Ababa to Adama agro-industrial development corridor in Ethiopia - have brought into sharp focus the capacity of governments to enforce such visions unhindered. Whether implemented through an executive-bureaucratic state whose authority is curtailed by processes of informalisation and relatively autonomous devolved units (Kenya), or through a decentralized but centrally controlled and authoritarian system of government (Ethiopia); this paper shows that in both cases, the state's ability to achieve its often simplified project visions is impeded by local responses and agendas, and in select cases, this incapacity engenders violence and conflict. Based on field interviews conducted in both Kenya and Ethiopia, official and NGO reports, and newspaper sources, this paper argues that the ability of both the Kenyan central government and the Ethiopian government to implement top-down developmental visions is limited, and that this process often times demands negotiations with other players, necessitating a fragmentation of state power. By examining the ability and capacity of state bureaucracies in both Kenya and Ethiopia in enforcing their developmental aims in peripheral regions, this paper builds on the concepts of 'illiberal state-building' and 'developmental authoritarianism' to address the wider literature on the African state.